I’ve been under the weather this month and have been unable to blog as I had planned. But, the following is a guest blog written by my wonderful husband.
Today, I want to look at relationships in the context of Newtonian physics. It’s not a perfect parallel, but the simile should suffice. In Newton’s third law it is stated “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” What does that mean? Well, let’s look at some examples:
When you sit in a chair (a good sturdy one!), do you fall to the ground? No. Why? Because your gravitational force downward on the chair is opposed by an equal and opposite force upward on you. Another example…when you drive and your car wheels push backward on the road, the road pushes forward on your car tires, propelling the car forward. And yet again…imagine a firefly happily flying toward that car and SPLAT! It hit the windshield. Now, without going into too much physics here, in the interaction between the car and the firefly there are two forces acting in opposite directions of one another, the car hitting the firefly and the firefly hitting the car. (The poor outcome for the firefly has everything to do with the comparative difference in the size of the two interacting objects.
So what does this have to do with relationships? Just this:
How many times have you said or done something to your spouse, child, parent, or friend, only to have them suddenly respond in a surprisingly angry and sometimes mean way? You wonder to yourself, “Where, on earth, did that come from?” Well, just like in Newtonian physics, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” So, you are thinking to yourself, “In no way, was the reaction I got equal to what I did!” Well…when this happens, just remember that we each approach relationships with different baggage. Some people are able to carry that baggage in a purse or hand bag. Others have to use a backpack. Still others must utilize the whole trunk of a car, while others still have to have a U-Haul or even an 18-wheeler. The size of our baggage to a large degree determines the perceived size of oncoming traffic. On-coming traffic is usually perceived as even bigger than us. So even though that little word or comment that we throw at someone else, to us seems like just a pedestrian, to the person at which we threw it , it may seem like a Mack truck. And the reaction will be in kind. So, always remember, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” as determined by the recipient of our words.
The more you lovingly search out, unpack and investigate the backpack, trunk or trailer of that person, the more they may decide that they can throw away. Maybe you can reduce their baggage down to only that camera, to capture all the wonderful memories you’re making together!
sunlight counseling 