How to be in Control of Your Life (Part 2)

So why is it that best friends usually don’t try to control each other?  I think it’s because best friendships begin and continue with a fundamentally different assumption than romantic relationships, or parent/child relationships, an assumption that is actually the recipe for any and every healthy relationship, a recipe summed up in one word:

Differentiation:

The balance of autonomy and intimacy

The ability to separate our thoughts from our emotions

And ourselves from others.

Best friends seem to naturally blend autonomy and intimacy, balancing togetherness and separateness.  Yes, they do still “own” each other; they still say, “This  is my best friend.”  But it’s possible to have more than one best friend, or to share the best friendship with other friends, associates, romantic partners, or parents.  This is because friends tend to be drawn together by a unique commonality they  share.  C.S. Lewis says it well in his book “The Four Loves.”

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one person says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” 

In other words, because friends aren’t primarily focused on each other or their ownership of each other, they tend to not seek control of each other.  But in relationships where the other is the focus, where there is a beautiful and mutual ownership, we may want to control what belongs to us, or who belongs to us.  Spouses belong to each other.  Parents belong to their children, and children belong to their parents.  When we own something, or someone, we tend to want to determine and be certain of its actions, or their actions.

(Concluded in Part 3)