Being Better from the Inside

In Plato's Symposium, Phaedrus suggests love is great because it makes you want to be a better person; his idea doesn't fare well philosophically. Even today, common wisdom has it that you can't make your life or your self better for anyone else's sake besides your own self's sake; you have to (consistently) want to be better at whatever it is before any lasting permanent change will take hold. I think I agree with this and today I think I noticed the difference between her sake and self sake.

On one hand, I think it can sometimes be difficult to sort out whose wants are who's in a relationship, often enough they overlap. Many times the betterment and standard I want for myself but have a hard time implementing I do eventually accomplish because I know it is also her standard too and the betterment she wants for me as well.

Of course on the other hand, there are those occasions when I am trying to accomplish something almost entirely for her sake; I might think this something is a good idea of itself or fine for other people, it's just not something I would choose for myself. And unsurprisingly these are the occasions I suffer from a serious lack of motivation; I'll procrastinate, and rush the process at the last minute, quite naturally doing a qualitatively shoddy job of it. And of course this inevitably comes back to haunt me (see love symbol negotiation).

However, today I felt and noticed a difference; I started a project for her earlier than the utmost procrastination might have allowed me and I did a decent job of it. I think the difference was I that wasn't doing it solely for her sake. Oh, I was using her qualitative standards for the project (mostly), but my motivation was that I really wanted to be better at being a house husband; her house husband of course, but more as a matter of incident. This is a job I really like and I just really wanted to be better it.

The 'job' description happens to include some qualitative standards set by my beloved wife, and indeed, I rather still think most of the point behind my house husband 'job' (role expectations) is to help her to her happiness (falls under the rubric of life lesson two, see also love's interior meaning for importance of motivation for life lesson two). But within this new (female led) motivation (on my interior) in wanting to be a better partner for her (better 'fit' like glove) is a practical daily life application that I didn't have, or even see, before. (See here for female led motivation she understands.)

When do my best to help her to happiness, I realized it was perfectly all right if she weren't happy in the final outcome - because while she sets many of the standards and the outcome of her happiness is the goal of the process, helping her as much as I am able to help is my goal, and if I only do this, I can be happy with me.