You Don’t Control Who Enters Your Life, You Control Who Stays

Luck, luck, coincidence. Whatever you call it, it affects the things we have no control over, such as our chances of winning the lottery, our health, and our relationships to some degree.

It has exerted its influence since we were born, giving us care, a family, a context and a range of opportunities that we would not have had otherwise. Things that we have no control over in our lives have been present before our lives even began.

This situation is similar to what happens at the beginning of most card games: each player is dealt certain cards that give him or her an advantage or a disadvantage.  The advantage depends not only on the cards that the player has been dealt, but also on the cards that others have. Something similar happens with social interaction.

Of all the hundreds of thousands of people, you get this one

Throughout our lives we meet many different people in many different ways. It could be a new colleague, an old lady waiting for the same bus, or someone bringing back our scarf we’ve been wanting to get rid of for a long time, one of those ugly gift you’ll never get rid of.

If you think about it, there are millions of situations where a conversation with someone you don’t know easily arises. These people are the cards in the deck: you have no control over who you will meet and who you will talk to in these kinds of situations.

You also don’t have much control over how they interact, over how open and ready they are to get to know you. But you can  try to let this chance encounter develop into a relationship that is more than just a mere anecdote.

You can control certain factors that are fundamental to getting to know that person better, to deepening your new relationship with them, from instilling confidence to showing an interest in what they say to you.

In any case  , your bond with certain people will be instant and almost magical. Two people on the same wavelength is partly due to the mutual understanding that is based on a perception of intimacy.

That said, keep in mind that the opposite can also happen. You can also use the same factors, those factors that you have control over and are aware of, that the relationship does not develop further or become more distant.

Although it sounds paradoxical, this is much simpler than the first situation. The list of bad things that can lead to a relationship is endless and you only need one item on that list.

Sometimes it’s hard to get someone out of our lives

You may be familiar with the movie How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days . In this film, a fearless reporter tries every strategy she can think of to stop a boy from trying to start a relationship with her. The motive for her article and her behavior is to show that there is certain kind of behavior that makes someone feel so uncomfortable that the relationship comes to an end. She can’t just tell him she doesn’t want a relationship with him. She has to make sure he doesn’t want her anymore through her behavior.

However, we have the ability to be direct, but like them  , we often use indirect strategies to accomplish what we could have accomplished with a handful of words. Words that may be more harmful in the moment, but for which they will be grateful in the long run.

We can be lucky or unlucky in our relationships and we can be better or worse at seducing the other person, but we must remember to look at reality with clarity and directness.

We can do a lot to keep the one we love as close as possible and also to keep away someone who has hurt us or in whom we simply have no interest.

Recognizing this power is the first step to using it. We can allow ourselves to think about it and over time use our social intelligence to make ourselves and others happy.

Everyone who enters our lives will play a certain role. Some will want to test it, others will use us, others will love us, others will be loved by us, and still others will teach us. In any case, we should try to be the best person we can be and appreciate what we have in every moment, instead of focusing on the mistakes. Because anything, really anything, can be a teaching moment.