The Middle

Beginnings and endings are the easiest, it's the damned middle that has all the hardships. Think about a 100m sprint. You know the beginning. You have practiced it a thousand times. And you know the end. You've dreamt about it forever. But it's the middle that decides who'll win the race. The right acceleration at the right moment and the continuous fight for breath to keep giving your 100% are the real challenge. Life isn't much different and people neither.

When you begin to know a person, it's all flowers and rainbows. You start getting to know each other. The very basics. All you know about a person in the start is what they've told you. There are so many people in our life that we know only till the beginning stage. Think about it, your classmates, your colleagues, your bosses. What you know about them is strictly limited to the details they want you to know. But it's our choice to know a person beyond this. That's the gap between acquaintance and friend. We start asking questions and judging the response. It is still the answers that we know but to the questions we specifically asked. We start learning things that shape our perception  about the person. And that's when it gets tough. When we develop a liking towards a person. 

You wouldn't mind if your acquaintance took a day to reply to your message but if your friend does the same you start questioning their position. We think of all sorts of possibilities when in reality maybe he's just been really busy completing a deadline. The point I am trying to make is as a person starts getting closer to you, you start setting some unconscious standards about their behaviour. And also you start noticing the little variations in the person's personality. Your knowledge about your friends now is not comprised of what they've let on but of what you've observed. We start expecting certain things. We start getting hurt by things that are in reality nom existent. And this is where most friendships get complicated. Rather than perceiving things as they are we start comparing them. We start over thinking minute issues that could have been easily resolved if they were ever brought up by anyone of us. It's this utter state of dilemma when we like our friend a lot but also are in a constant fear of betrayal. The things are as simple as they were at the start but we have reached the rocky middle. 

We just need to remind ourselves of the reason why we thought that this person could be more than just an acquaintance. We need to put aside our assumption of things and try to look at the reality of them. We need to cast aside the false standards set by everyone else and remind ourselves of all the good times we had in the beginning. We need to ponder upon the fact that if the person is so special and important to us then why should we let trivial issues in the way of our relation. I am not saying that there aren't relationships and friendships that must be ended for our betterment. I am just saying that we must not lose hope just because the going got tough. 

As we aim at simplifying things, the simpler they seems to appear. Complications are results of trying to do things before their right time.