A friend once told me “everybody is full of shit; it’s just a matter of whose shit you’re willing to put up with”. When it comes to dating and relationships, I believe that no one is going to fulfill all your wants and needs. No one is going to meet every quality on our checklist and no couple is agreeable 100% of the time. The 80/20 rule was once a phrase created only for businesses, it simply states that 80% of your business will come from 20% of your clients. Now, we can use the 80/20 rule and apply it to relationships and dating.
During the first phases of dating and getting to know someone, we enter that bliss stage. We’ve all had it, that feeling that hits you when you think that the person you’ve met is the person of your dreams. You smile at every text, you spend hours on the phone, and you go the extra mile to make sure you look absolutely perfect when you see each other. No one shows all their flaws in the beginning, you hit that stage as dating turns into a relationship and you settle into the world of commitment. This is where the 80/20 rule comes into play. In the world of relationship the 80/20 rules states that you will only get 80% of what you desire in a relationship. In most cases, you will get everything you need but you won’t get everything you want.
As time progresses and the bliss stage starts to gradually disappear, we begin to really pay attention to the differences that wasn’t so important to us in the beginning. We sometimes live in an all or nothing world and we begin to focus on that small 20% of differences that we have. So we go out and search for that 20% thinking that the grass is greener on the other side and we would eventually find someone who meets 100% of our wants and needs (good luck with that), we date and enter into relationships with people who has that 20% and that’s it. We then continuously spend our time searching for something that isn’t there. We reflect on what we once had and kick ourselves for not holding on to it while we had it. Sometimes we lack the ability to appreciate life as it is and we settle into new situations that leave us feeling void, empty, & lost. If you focus on your own happiness you would not need the other 20% to make you happy, we should not be dependent upon relationships to ensure 100% of our happiness. As it relates to life, 80% of the issues we face can be resolved if you took the time to work on 20% of the them.
One thing that life has taught me is to appreciate a good thing while you have it. The problems start when you start bitching about what you don’t have instead of appreciating what you do. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that 80% is much better than 20% any day of the week. Don’t focus on the 20% of differences you may have, focus on the 80% and compromise on the rest. For those of you who like to continuously hop the fence for greener grass, it’s best to remember that your grass would be just as green if you took care of it. Every now and then we will have to put up with someone’s shit! So think about it, would you rather have 80 or 20?
