I called my girlfriend to tell her I was sorry for not getting in touch on a day we made tentative plans. As I started to offer an explanation, she abruptly cut me off. "I didn't call you, either," she confessed. (Wow, that was easy, I thought.) The next thing I knew, the events of her weekend unfolded, and, ironically, our endings were the same: We both cried over a boy. ... I should have picked up the phone Sunday. At the very least I would have been in good company. And good company is the best.
Put a Band-Aid on it.
Without a wound to speak of,
when you offer me an adhesive bandage
I accept it lovingly
(and why not?),
the thought alone
has healing properties;
might as well put a sticker on it,
making me feel better instantly
and letting everyone else know,
in bright colors,
how therapeutic it is—
having you [stick] around.
Of all the relationships, one of my favorites is that of cause & effect.
Wikipedia explains causality as the agency or efficacy that connects one process (the cause) with another process or state (the effect), where the first is understood to be partly responsible for the second, and the second is dependent on the first.
Without exactly both, you'd either have an explanation without an event, or an event with no explanation as to why it happened.
In essence, there'd be no chicken, or no egg, leaving us all in a constant state of bewilderment (and without anything to eat!).
People say you can't make anyone feel a certain way, but there are plenty of triggers with correlations to both good and bad outcomes, so it's always been a little hard for me to accept this (you can blame my sensitive soul). While the psychological cause and effect relationship may be complicated by emotion, it does not invalidate the connection altogether. What we do can and does have an effect on others.
It's called influence!
Think about it: your thoughts ("the why", or effect) can influence another to have second thoughts ("the what", or cause).
Now think again: someone's second thoughts (effect) can influence your thoughts (cause).
(Kind of mind boggling, yes.)
Influence is practically the most powerful tool in predictability, next to force, since it holds the power to change opinions, attitudes, hearts and minds. And we all have this power!
In an interpersonal relationship, though, cause and effect is not about which (or who) came first. It's about taking responsibility for your role as the chicken, or the egg. No matter what, you're either going to be partly responsible for another, or dependent on one.
Vesy Valcheva is a lifestyle photographer from the Metro Detroit area, with a keen eye for creativity, innovation and design. In every photo she attempts to capture the emotion and essence of her subject, whether it be a person, place, event, or object. All four elements are brought to life in her photograph featured above, taken along the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan.