In a world where we have unparalleled access to other people’s relationships and find ourselves falling victim to the devil that is comparison, so often we’re desperate to know if we’re doing things right.
If the life we’re living is the life that looks, sounds and feels okay. That we’re not blindly leading ourselves down a path to self-destruction.
When it comes to relationships, best-selling author Mark Manson – who penned The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – says the best relationships are the ones you don’t have to really think about at all.
“I think, if you look at a relationship, I actually think it should be as boring as possible,” he recently told Business Insider. “And that sounds really weird to people but if you think about it, a really happy 80-year-old couple that’s been together for 60 years, the reason that they’ve been together for 60 years, it isn’t because they took all these private jets and they had these crazy vacations and “Oh my God, look at their pictures.”
Listen: Mia Freedman speaks with relationship expert Esther Perel about the model of monogamy, and why happy people cheat. Post continues after audio.
“It’s an important thing for people to understand because I think, especially today, a lot of people — we don’t want to be a boring person, like we really want to be interesting people and have interesting lives but the problem is that, that conflicts with what makes a relationship good in a lot of cases. A lot of cases, what makes you an interesting and complex person, makes you a really horrible person to be with romantically.”
It’s not the first time Manson has touched on how the best relationships should be the easiest.
Writing on his blog, the author says sometimes surrendering to the need to impress someone is the key to a healthy relationship.
“A successful relationship is built around letting go. It’s about giving up control, giving up the need to be loved or wanted or right all the time.”
