The Money System
The other day I just realized that we have for almost everything a system in place, right? A system to make money, a plan for our career, lists that help us to achieve our goals. The more system, discipline and perseverance we implement in our lives the more successful we eventually will become. The one area that really sucks because of a lack of system is marriage. So, how are we suppose to create a great marriage? A pilot with out a system on how to fly an aircraft is probably not the most successful pilot, and safest as well. Instead, we act on autopilot. Many of our parents from the 60 and 70s generation did play around and experiment with marriage and relationships and mostly trashed them. that was not so healthy for the coming generation.
The d- Generation
Get this, 2/3 of the coming generation will be from a d- household. Can you imagine what implications this has for how the future family will look like? And when our parents were bad role models how would we ever get to be married successfully again? Its a vicious circle that can be passed on from generation to generation. Lets have cats instead of kids.
So, you might ask me whats the solution, right? We have to rebuild a marriage system that leads to a successful and loving relationship. We can learn so much from the ancient Hebrews. They wrote down a whole marriage code that actually works. Till today. There are does and donts. It teaches behaviors that applies to most people. That in turn will evoke emotions. Most people have the same emotional response anyway. For example, when I yell at you that doesn’t make you feel amazing, right? And guess what, 97% of the people will have that same reaction. Some weirdos set aside. So, why not finding the common ground and common behavior that makes our marriage a great marriage?
But Shmuel, you might ask, people are so different, there are so many different personalitie styles out there. True, we all do have different personalities. But if we watch ourselves from 2000 feet above lets say with the help of a helicopter or UFO we might look quite alike in our behaviors.
Schedule Your Marriage
In my own life I try to find the common basics that lead to a successful marriage. I have experimented with different behaviors and systems that can create a loving relationship. Just as a simple example:
I write down my stuff that I have to do for our marriage. You would schedule meetings for your work or responsibilities too, right? I schedule the kind of gifts I want to buy for Melody, when to make her dinner or even just when to call her and let her know how much I care about her. The cool thing is that my calendar auto – reminds me to do these things. I don’t need to have them memorized anymore. Isn’t that a bit too much thats asked from me? Not at all. If I have time to schedule my client meetings how much more so I have the responsibility to schedule all the wonderful things for my wife. Now you might say: Shmuel, I don’t need a calendar to tell me what to do for my wife. Really? How often have you forgotten to bring something she asked for? How often did an anniversary slip and you find yourself at CVS in order to buy a last minute gift? We tend to take our spouses for granted. This calendar system ensures that your family shows up next to your boss’s meetings in your task list. We can learn a lot from business applications and apply them to our private lives. We have them in business because making money and being successful is so important, right? Why not using that same success method and to apply this to our most important asset. Our spouses. They should always come first. Always. They will bring you tea and lunch when you are sick. They stick around when you are at your weakest point in life. When you loose or win. Lets not take that for granted.
Where on Earth do the Hebrews talk about the Calendar?
Ok, ok. You got me on this one. It actually doesn’t say anywhere in Jewish literature that we have to make calendars to remind us what to do for our spouse. But what it does say is that we are suppose to put our spouse first. So, #1 means that I do all the things that I would do if the President of the United States is coming to my house for my wife. That simple.
S.
