I spoke with a 29 year old woman the other day who is still single and eager, but not desperate, to get married. I've been married 13 years tomorrow - my anniversary. Sometimes I'm amazed we've made it this far, but we learned a few things along the way that made it possible. So in chatting with this woman, I realized how much my thinking about marriage has changed over the years (and how hard it would have been to learn this prior to being married).
One of the notions that I kept hearing in her language (I don't remember the words she used) was the importance of the right chemistry between two people. She mentioned friends who think they might have settled too quickly for the wrong guy. These kinds of mindsets are so common. I believe that kind of thinking is dangerous. One of the points I made with her was that there is no value in discussing chemistry or if two people are right for each other after they are married. Once married, it is quite harmful to wonder whether or not you are with the right person. Here is the right way to think about it: "you're married, your spouse is now the right person, start thinking about how to improve your relationship rather than decide if you should be in it."
The thinking that wonders if someone is the right person assumes there is something critical about the combination of two people that makes relationships work. I don't believe things work this way. What makes a relationship work is the choices that each person makes, not some innate quality within the individuals that cannot be altered.
Relationships operate according to principles. These principles can be learned. As I've said previously, we enter into relationships that benefit us and both parties in any relationship expect certain terms to be adhered to. In marriage those terms are written as vows. Many of the relationship difficulties people face in marriage come from violating those vows. The other difficulties people face in their marriages come from selfishness and what I call "following with love" rather than "leading with love."
When a person "follows with love" they say to themselves, "I'll do something loving after my spouse does something loving." A follower waits until they feel loved before they do loving things. When dating, the relationship is all about the way the other person makes us feel (chemistry). Once married, there is a job to do. There are bills to pay, chores to do, problems to solve. Marriage then requires teamwork. It stops being about how you feel (reactive) and starts being about what you do (proactive). People get resentful because they no longer feel what they used to feel when dating. They want to feel that same thing again. Therefore they only do what they need to do when they feel what they want to feel. Unfortunately this results in two people who rarely feel what they want to feel and rarely do what they need to do.
My wife and I practice "leading with love." This means that we attempt to do loving things (we don't always succeed) even when we don't feel loved, even when the other person is not doing anything that qualifies them to receive our love. If Christ loved us when we were still in sin and utterly unlovable, then we should be striving to be like Him and do the same. We're actually commanded to do so in 1 John 4:10-11 "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
Christ loved while we were in sin and then asks us to love the same way. Wow. Tall order, but it is a principle that works. Plus, and here's the real benefit, the feelings of love follow "leading with love." The feelings of love are the result of loving actions. If I choose to do what I should do and my wife chooses to do what she should do, we both get the benefit of feeling the passion and the love that we enjoy so much. In God's economy things always work this way - the benefit follows the work.
The reason the woman I spoke with hears from friends that are wondering if they "settled" for the wrong person - they've lost "those loving feelings." (Think of the song - "You've lost that loving feeling") The feelings weren't lost, the couple just isn't doing what's necessary to produce them - serving each other. The person who wonders if they "settled" is assuming that if they had chosen a better spouse things would have worked out better. If already married - it doesn't do any good to wonder that! The marriage difficulties are not the result of marrying the wrong person, they are the result of not adhering to the principles of successful relationships.
Jesus Christ came to serve. As we learn to be more like him, especially in our relationships, we will find that our relationships will start to work. My marriage has lasted 13 years because my wife and I have realized that marriage is about serving, not being served. Loving first, not waiting to first be loved. We've learned that our marriage success comes from deciding that our marriage is more important than anything else. We have not given ourselves the liberty of deciding that "this isn't going to work out." We're going to make it work out. It's no longer about the chemistry - its about the choices.
Subject Areas: Christianity, Marriage, Dating
Government Demand and Vote Buying
I listened to a discussion this morning where people were discussing the cost of sending their kids to school. I noticed another article in a magazine this morning about college costs. Here is another one in the Washington Post. College is expensive and getting more so. Why?
Prices of all things move in order to equalize supply and demand. If lots of people want something, and they have the means to buy it, prices will rise. If they don't rise, for any reason, there will be a shortage. An increase in price is the only way to avoid the shortage.
When government "visionaries" or what libertarians call "central planners" decide to promote something that they consider to be in the best interest of society, they alter its price structure. In the college issue, politicians searching for votes see a large vote base among the "disadvantaged" youth who may not be able to afford college. In their thinking, its only right that government should help out these youngsters who cannot afford college.
Unfortunately, government assistance only shifts the group who cannot afford college from one disadvantaged group to a different disadvantaged group. You see, when government provides funds for a given purchase, there now exists in the marketplace buyers who previously could not afford that product - an increase in demand. Thus, the price increases to bring demand into equilibrium with supply.
There are only so many "seats" out there in colleges at a given moment in time. When government funds one group in order to help them buy those seats, the price of each seat goes up; therefore a new group is going to find them unaffordable. Now, a politician rather than the fairness of the market is determining who gets to go to college. That of course, is just the way the politicians like it!
When I say "fairness" of the market, I mean it in this respect: those who are able to buy are those who have acquired the means to buy via service to the marketplace. Politicians love to celebrate the "virtues" of the poor. As much as I feel sorry for the difficulties that a poor person faces, they are poor because they have not brought their abilities to the market and used their time, talent, and energy to improve the lives of others. We might be able to blame their decision not to participate in the free market on many factors, but the end result is that they don't serve humanity like a rich person does. Rich people are rich because they do something that others find valuable enough to spend their money on. (This conclusion could obviously provoke debate. Let me clarify by saying a lot of the system is corrupted already. In a true free market, with a government functioning as it should to preserve liberty, our wealth would be a product of our service alone.)
The fairness of the market allows those who serve their fellow man to buy goods and services from their fellow man. Government intrusion into the market alters this moral principle. The government takes from one group and gives it to another. Since the group that gets it didn't earn it, and yet they have access to goods and services from the market that they otherwise wouldn't have had, we must recognize that an injustice has occurred.
So in our college example: since prices have risen and a new group that otherwise could have afforded college now cannot, we must recognize that in their case, an injustice has occurred. Government demand drove prices up to help a favored group at the expense of 2 other groups - 1) the group that paid taxes for services they didn't receive and 2) the group that can't afford education because the price is now too high.
Of course, the problem here is not limited to college tuition. The same injustices occur wherever politicians venture. Take for example farm subsidies. When the government supports a crop, the price rises above its natural price making it less affordable for buyers and removing the ability for other suppliers to compete effectively - thus keeping the price high since competition is suppressed. The same thing happens to the price of medical services with government subsidized health care such as Medicaid.
Many might agree with the governments choice of groups to favor. Unfortunately, any favored group creates injustice. Again this is an example of the impact of vote buying at the expense of the liberty and at the expense of fairness.
Subject Areas: College, Politics, Government Subsidies, Rich, Poor, College Tuition, Farm Subsidies, Medicare
Prices of all things move in order to equalize supply and demand. If lots of people want something, and they have the means to buy it, prices will rise. If they don't rise, for any reason, there will be a shortage. An increase in price is the only way to avoid the shortage.
When government "visionaries" or what libertarians call "central planners" decide to promote something that they consider to be in the best interest of society, they alter its price structure. In the college issue, politicians searching for votes see a large vote base among the "disadvantaged" youth who may not be able to afford college. In their thinking, its only right that government should help out these youngsters who cannot afford college.
Unfortunately, government assistance only shifts the group who cannot afford college from one disadvantaged group to a different disadvantaged group. You see, when government provides funds for a given purchase, there now exists in the marketplace buyers who previously could not afford that product - an increase in demand. Thus, the price increases to bring demand into equilibrium with supply.
There are only so many "seats" out there in colleges at a given moment in time. When government funds one group in order to help them buy those seats, the price of each seat goes up; therefore a new group is going to find them unaffordable. Now, a politician rather than the fairness of the market is determining who gets to go to college. That of course, is just the way the politicians like it!
When I say "fairness" of the market, I mean it in this respect: those who are able to buy are those who have acquired the means to buy via service to the marketplace. Politicians love to celebrate the "virtues" of the poor. As much as I feel sorry for the difficulties that a poor person faces, they are poor because they have not brought their abilities to the market and used their time, talent, and energy to improve the lives of others. We might be able to blame their decision not to participate in the free market on many factors, but the end result is that they don't serve humanity like a rich person does. Rich people are rich because they do something that others find valuable enough to spend their money on. (This conclusion could obviously provoke debate. Let me clarify by saying a lot of the system is corrupted already. In a true free market, with a government functioning as it should to preserve liberty, our wealth would be a product of our service alone.)
The fairness of the market allows those who serve their fellow man to buy goods and services from their fellow man. Government intrusion into the market alters this moral principle. The government takes from one group and gives it to another. Since the group that gets it didn't earn it, and yet they have access to goods and services from the market that they otherwise wouldn't have had, we must recognize that an injustice has occurred.
So in our college example: since prices have risen and a new group that otherwise could have afforded college now cannot, we must recognize that in their case, an injustice has occurred. Government demand drove prices up to help a favored group at the expense of 2 other groups - 1) the group that paid taxes for services they didn't receive and 2) the group that can't afford education because the price is now too high.
Of course, the problem here is not limited to college tuition. The same injustices occur wherever politicians venture. Take for example farm subsidies. When the government supports a crop, the price rises above its natural price making it less affordable for buyers and removing the ability for other suppliers to compete effectively - thus keeping the price high since competition is suppressed. The same thing happens to the price of medical services with government subsidized health care such as Medicaid.
Many might agree with the governments choice of groups to favor. Unfortunately, any favored group creates injustice. Again this is an example of the impact of vote buying at the expense of the liberty and at the expense of fairness.
Subject Areas: College, Politics, Government Subsidies, Rich, Poor, College Tuition, Farm Subsidies, Medicare
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