Painting the life canvas

When two people come together in a partnership, they come as individuals. With their own strengths and weaknesses. Their unique personalities and perspectives that shape their world.

Each person brings his or her own uniqueness to the relationship. And the coming together of these two individuals makes the relationship unique. There is no other relationship like it.

The relationship then develops its own personality. The two individuals now start to share their unique views to make a collective one. Each one fills their own colour in the life canvas.

Oftentimes the colours are complimentary. But there are times when they don’t match. Not because the individuals are bad at it. They just have different opinions on what looks good. It’s their own perspective.

But this mismatch in colour causes friction.

Because neither is willing to see the other’s vision.

Each thinks the canvas got spoilt because of the other. That their own choice of colour was the best. And now they have a mismatched canvas.

But look at it from a different view. And you find that the canvas was just made personal. Unique to their own relationship. The mismatch is what makes the canvas dynamic. And attractive.

Each individual wants the other to paint according to their own vision. The collective vision now starts to fade.

Control and influence now become the dominant behaviours.

Creativity and spontaneity take a back seat.

They no longer feel the colours in the moment. But start anticipating the other’s choice and change their own to suit it. They want to avoid friction.

The relationship starts to lose two unique perspectives. It starts representing the dominant one. And loses its wholesome world view.

The life canvas starts to look like it was painted by one individual. With the same set of colours and brushes. It starts to feel copied.

The two individuals continue painting and navigating the canvas. Some colours even start to run dry. And why not? They haven’t used it in a long time.

In fact, some have never been touched.

The enthusiasm with which the new blank canvas was unwrapped has faded.

When it was unwrapped, it represented possibilities, adventure, colour, passion, creativity, dynamism.

LIFE.

Now, it has started to look grey and monotone.

The life canvas cannot be planned. There is no “vision” that two individuals see and then paint it.

The purpose of the life canvas is to create the vision together. It’s dynamic and changing. Each individual brings their own colours and brushes. Their own style. Creativity. View. Perspective.

It is this individual uniqueness that makes the canvas unique. And the painting that unfolds is one of a kind.