Welcome to the Precariat

"The New Politics of the Welfare State" by Paul Pierson is a paper that sets out an interesting question in political science about whether or not the welfare state as we know it is being dismatled in the last decades mainly with the emergence of neo-liberal politics. This article opened up a discussion in the field that led several political scientists to come to the conclusion that there is no doubt an evolution in public policy all over Europe from what we call the "old policies" towards the "new policies" of the welfare state.

 This change has been pushed for  political parties all across Europe, and incredibly, not only by the parties we would more cleary see as being suportive of these policies: right wing or conservative parties. This is not an scientific article so i will just write it simply for you: when we do speak about "old social policies" we are talking about the kind of support that we have been used to expect from our national states: subsidies, transfers, medical support, educational support... These ones found their support in traditional working class mainly and still hold firm ground as a preference amongst middle class in most of the western countries. 

As for the "new policies" we are looking at a set of policies that are mainly focused on activation policies in the labour market, i.e, policies that no longer focus on the relationship state-individual, but make their way across third parties (private sector) in order to asure that you as an individual get your needs met through the labour marketing instead of depending on the state to cater for those needs.

 The old policies had a more universalistic character. Despite the big differences between types of welfare regimes, one can say that more or less all the population was considered whenever the redistribution of income was made through social security and other means. The new form of welfare regimes that we are observing now is not so. It is extremelly contractualist on its principles and it´s based on the idea that without the participation of the individual in the labour market, rights should be restricted. This idea is particulary interest when we are looking at a whole generation that was pushed to the universities to get degrees that have hugely massificated the labour force and put them in a labour market that cannot possibly absorve them. And once again THIS WAS A POLITICAL DECISION TOO. Democratization in education doesn´t really work in this conditions to break the cicle of poverty and inequality. Once it´s available for almost everyone, what will be a game changer will many times be a set of assets, internships, courses that cannot be attended very democratically.

But let´s move on. The relationship between the market and society has become an interesting one: if the market was once subordinated to the society as a means to serve it, more and more this relationship was inverted and society became to serve the markets. If you´re curious about this invertion i suggest you to read Polanyi´s "The Great Transformation", which you can access here. That is pretty clear when you have states withrawing from their role as public supporters and passing it on to the market, as if the market could cater for those needs. But it can´t. Markets don´t have morals, principles or orientations. 

Political parties are being emptied of their traditional ideology and coming to support more and more the same type of public policies regardless of their orientation or filiation. Sindicates and unions are declining both in numbers and importance. Political participation and mobilization is generally weak amogst those who are less privileged. Policies and public spending used  to convert western societies into more equalitarian ones have had a limited success since in many states they failed to target the roots of inequality.

The crisis that started in 2008 was a window of opportunity for the policy-makers to enforce these agendas, because this "new policies" would represent a cut on public spending. An oversized welfare state was repeatedly appointed as the origin of the crises, when this one has very different origins, which we all know to be strongly related to the desregulation of the finantial sector.

Many people are left outside the protective wing of the state, as new risks are emerging in the last decades that are not being adressed because these people fall into a hiatus of transition where they cannot benefit from the traditional support for being too young, and are too old to catch the wave of the reforms that just started, and are thus in a fragile position. And this in itself is creating a rearrangement of the social classes that is different from all that is know until now.

Despolitization, as political tactic of removing the political character of decision-making as been very efectivelly used to make these changes, and the public discourse of political parties is embedded with a strange conformism that is nothing but a defense of the status quo, one that has become the true "tragedy of the commons". Their discourse is nothing more than a historical fallacy that tells us we got to the end of history and nothing can ever change.

These are very general trends of course. As i stated before this is not on intends to be a scientific article but is more a like a sum we shall all keep in mind.

More and more we are looking at a political world that is detatching from the electorate. Not big news here. Governments have been prooved to be in general far more responsive to organized interest than to the preferences of the electorate. But as politics moves from the social sphere into the economic sphere, people still have a grip on it as far as they are the work force in which the economic system relies. Though the weight of regular individuals in this relation is obviously more light than the other way around - and even more now with the increase of its  dependence on the labour market to suit its needs - it is still an economic and thus political weapon. 

But there are some problems with this of course. One of the problems is that this transformations in the labour market came accompanied by a transformation and flexibilization of the labour relations that turned most of these into unstable bonds - the so called "atypical contracts", which are the norm of a all new generation of workers. Thus, the weapon we were talking about is not all that, at least for now.

A second problem that leaves this new class into deep problems is of course pension schemes. No discounts, no pensions in old age of course. A generation will be left at the mercy of private schemes in banks which have already proved to be above good and evil and able to have wreckless behaviours towards their clients.

And the third one is maybe the most serious of all. We are witnessing a 4th industrial revolution that will have major political impacts. Work force will be cut, and it will obviously be cut from the bottom up. As the rate of replacement of work force takes ground faster and faster, not only regular people will loose their ultimate means of reinvidication as the risks will increase at the same time and in the same proportion. Technology will insulate political and economic elites for good.

Furthermore, technology is driving government issues out of the hands of traditional politicians who are more responsive to electorate (since their political careers depend on popularity), into the hands of technocrats who are highly insulated from public pressure once they're careers are mainly pursued in the private sector.

Not only are these insulated, as their strong commitment and professional development in the private sector is a strong source of bias. Issues and even public laws are of such a complexity that people have seen their rights of deciding over their destiny in modern democracies held hostage of a monolitic and dogmatic political discourse that tell these people there are no other possible social-economic model. We no longer live in democracies, all we have left is an illusion of choice.

The ghost of EU government (specially after the last constitutional treaty!) is the final and very visible side of these. Just look at what happened to Greece when they tried to claim back their sovereignity. Debts can be forgiven sometimes...when it suits political elites to do so.

What will this mean for political democratic regimes? How can people hold any claims towards a government and a society that does no longer need the typical individual?

Technological evolution contains within itself a seed of self-destruction. As more and more people are exposed to poverty and social inequality, we can picture that this will end up taking its toll on the economic cicle in the long run. The more fragile the typical individual is, the more probability we have of drop in demand.

 This are all suppositions of course, but the future we´re building seems quite bleak in my eyes.

This blog is supposed to be about having a good life. Having a good life requires that we are allowed to sustainable means of living, health and most of all freedom. These are being taken from the hands of our generation slowly as we watch. We're all a big bunch of sit down activists. But we should be worried, and we should be moving. This is very serious.

History tells us that everytime socio-economical conditions are pushed to extrems, and people start feeling they were put against the wall, they react. When you cannot make an agreement, you will probably turn to force. Extreme-right parties have been on the rise in Europe, and it´s not only because some people are xenophobes. It is because people are at the edge and they lack hope in a better future, hope that they will be heard and their needs will be met. Violence is always a reaction to hopelessness.

Politicians have made us believe that they are governed by economics, but that is nothing but a lie. It is a way of desreponsabilization for them to pursue their reactionary agendas. And people have to know, have to worry, have to talk about this, have to gather and must fight.

Most of us are this new class!

Being happy is also about being conscient. Not being allienated. Stop being a robot. Stop thinking we got to the end of History and now we can just stare at our iphones. It´s not true. And you will never find happiness in an unhappy world, cause sooner or later the shit will drop on your lawn too. 

Engage with your world. You didn´t get here by chance. You are the effort of all those who stood and fought before you. Honour them.

I am just a girl. But this is building up inside of me so i have to talk.  Let´s be bold, let´s be dangerous.

 If you don´t take my word for it WATCH THE VIDEO BELLOW! A fair explanation from someone who sure will taught you better.

Have a great day!

Types of Abusive Relationships

If you happened to start a search on the topic of abusive relationships maybe you wanna stay around, because this probably is an article for you.

 One unmistakable sign of being in an abusive relationship is that you start to feel that something is off,

 
By the time you go online to find some answers you probably are pretty convinced already of two things:

 a) something strange is happening between you and that person that is making you feel very unconfortable and/or sad 

 b) you need help dealing with it. As much as it pains you not always what was supposed to be a caring relationship is an healthy and nurturing thing.

The first thing i want to clarify about this topic is that abuse comes in all forms and shapes.


          Some of this forms are really clear and identifiable; some are so subtle that you’ll be going through hell doubting and blaming yourself thinking that the problem must be in you. 

Abusers also come in all shapes and sizes: they can be your boyfriend/girlfriend, parent, neighbor, boss, friend … and the list goes on. They can be rude or absolutelly charming.

           One thing that you have to keep in mind for the sake of your mental health and physical integrity is that the persons we keep in our lives are supposed to be there for a reason: to make our lives more fulfilling and rich. If you are keeping someone close to you that only (or mainly) provokes negative feelings on you, I am sorry to tell you but you are being abused.

You’re going to tell me now: yes, that person does this or that to me, but at the same time all people have faults and do wrong sometimes… Yes! That’s totally true. What defines abuse is not somebody hurting you punctually. That will always happen in any relationship, because relationships include conflict and actually need conflict to exist and evolve. We all have different needs to be met. But abuse is something different and is defined by three little concepts: repetition; selfishness and denial.


                                                                    PATERNS

The first one that we are going to look at is repetition, and to break it down for you simply, you know that an abusive behavior is being repited when you start feeling conditioned by it. What i mean by conditioned is when you change your way of being, needs and preferences in order to please the abuser or to avoid being abused. This is pretty clear when for instance you stop going out so much with your friends because the person you’re in a relationship with gets grumpy, suspicious or texts like mad when you do; or you start to hide things from your family because every time you tell them your plans they always put you down and smash you with negative comments and so on.

The second thing you wanna look at is selfishness in the behavior. Typically you will find that people who tend to have abusive behaviors exhibit a pattern of selfish motives, even when this motives come disguised as altruist. To be more clear, if you dig down a little bit more, people who aren’t being abusive will ultimately give you a reason for their hurtful behaviour that will be valid. As for abusers, if you  question them you will soon find out that they were just trying to meet their needs somehow (as crazy as this needs are, and trust me, sometimes they are unbelievably crazy).  They can be doing this for several different reasons like fears, insecurities, distortion of reality, pure evilness, but nevertheless you will always get to the conclusion that whatever they did was never with a constructive intention, it was never a simple misunderstood. More often than not you will start to shed some light on their really distorted interpretations of reality.

The third point is denial. I won’t say that abusers never recognize when they do wrong. Some of them are actually experts in recognizing all their faults just to keep you entangled and perpetuate the abuse, but if you look closer they will never assume that they are manipulating you, they´re mistreating you continuously or they’re taking advantage of you. They may assume they did something wrong in a particular situation to get away with it but they will never admit to their true colors or commit to change or get help.

Now that you know the main thing to look for i also want to make a point about the intention of abuse. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that not all abusers are the same and so their intentions are also not the same. Some people abuse others because they have low levels of empathy and thrive on exploitation (like people who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder), some because they’re unconscious and irreflective,  others because they have deeps fears of abandonment (as you will find in people who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder). 

      Some of the abusers will be really convinced they like you or love you, and will even give you signs of that once or more. What you have to understand is that for some people the concepts of love, friendship and relationships that they learnt while they where still very young are very distorted. For this individuals, what they are living is their concept of a normal relationship between two human beings because they simply don’t have any other. What you believe is right and normal is very much culturally and socially conditioned, so if a person learned something wrong in the childhood, it is extremely hard to recondition the most basic concepts through which they see and think the world.

        You will thus find that emotional and psycological abuse is very highly correlated to personality disorders and similar disturbances. Some of the ones that are more associated with these type of behaviours are Narcissism, Borderline Personality Disorder and Co-dependency. These are very common in population. For a professional insight into these type of disorders you can look at the works of Dr. Sam Vaknin and Dr. Ross Rosenberg in the links bellow. You can go through a long list of articles and videos of these authors who are deeply experienced in the study of these patients.

       

    Understanding the difference between one type and the other is extremely hard and sometimes can only be done with the help of a professional. The diagnosis of these disorders is in many cases extremelly subtle and hard to do without a deep study of these and many hours of analysis. 

      As for you, you have to know that if you choose to keep an abuser in your life because you believe in his recovery you are in for a bumpy ride, and you’ll have to make big sacrifices and learn techniques to deal with this type of people.

       Don´t stay close to these people if you feel the violence you are suffering is incapacitating you in any way or endangering you. If you choose to stay you will have to have a deep emotional stability and learn about these disorders in order to cope effectivelly with them. These people thrive on your own fragilities, so if you have many, the smart choice is to let go.

       Another thing I want you to consider is that abuse if often misunderstood as physical violence. Of course physical violence is abuse, and can be pretty damaging. We all know that, we all see the news.

     But abuse is much more that that: it is a range of subtle behaviors that may have a strong psychological effect, to the point of getting you physically ill because you can’t put up any more with the stress and anxiety the abuser is causing on you. In some cases some abusive behaviours can make you literally fall apart with emotional distress and develop several physical and psychological problems like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

        Here’s a non-comprehensive list of more subtle behaviours you may wanna check your relationship for things like:

1. Feeling scared of talking to a person or expressing your feelings and opinions (because she will be enraged)
2. Having your property, accounts, schedules or even word checked-on constantly in a controlling way;
3.  Being exposed to a distortion of facts (to the point of you starting to doubt yourself);
4. Being demanded something that will be in some way prejudicial or sacrificial for you;
5. Being shoved down an alley of negative remarks and comments about yourself or exposed to extreme nagging about life in general in a regular basis;
6. Being forced to listen to someone or do something for someone when you don’t feel like doing it because you know the person won’t take a no;
7. Being told lies regulary;
8. Being lured by empty promises that never come true;
9. Being bothered at improper times or hour by someone;
10. Being asked for lots of small things and favours all the time in a exploitative way;
11. Someone disappearing or shutting you down once you complain instead of seeing things through with you, just to make you step back on your needs or claims;
12. Being put on a guilt trip everytime you do something that it’s totally in your right to do (like not share something is yours or is private; asserting your opinion and needs or not doing something against your values..)
13. Being put in a situation where someone always forces you to solve their problems for them;
14. Being told you are no good in a regular basis;
15. Being made fun off in a way that makes you feel diminished;
16. Being constantly invalidated by someone on your choices or opinions;
17. Being subject to the “authority” of someone who considers herself to know better what’s best for you;

Well.. I could go on and on with the list, but you have to keep in mind that each and every behavior that causes you to feel anxious, frightened, stressed and depressed coming from a person you are in a relationship with is probably  abuse. 

If you need to put it to a test, I advise you to go to the person and expose your feelings calmly and assertively, because many people feel bad in relationships just because they never had the courage to assert their needs. This is a very important step in any mature and healthy relationship for it to be functional.

          If however you hit a hard wall or all you get is more abuse, we have a winner! And if you get to the conclusion that you may be in an abusive relationship, then you have to do some deep thinking. Do actually take time off just to think about yourself. 

         Try to see it clearly situation by situation, what were the motives for the other persons behavior, if you could have cause them somehow; what are the reasons the person has to that, and if she deserves you to continue investing in this tie. Be honest with yourself and don't overthink it! 

       Whatever choice you take, never forget to do an interior analysis on yourself, and ask yourself, what where the reasons that led you to relate to this person in the first place?; Is it possible that there is something wrong in yourself that makes you engage in this relationships?; what is making you stay?; do you need to stay in this relationship?; are you taking something good out of it?; what would happen if you broke the relationship?; what are your other options?; what are you missing out because of this person?; who much are you willing to sacrifice to help the person if you think you can help? (remember that not all the abusers are suitable of help!). 

          Write these down if you need to. Many times people who expose themselves to violence in the first place have something to sort out in themselves too. You may find some good clues for what to do next. In any case remember that you can always find immense help on the communities online, articles, videos, local associations and professionals, that can make your job easier!

Ultimately remember that you are the biggest responsible for the way your feel!

Take Care!

10 STEPS TO HAVE A BETTER LIFE

Nowadays many people seem to manifest a sort of mal-being they don’t really know where its coming from. 

They feel worn out like nothing ever works for them as planned as if God himself was playing a deceitful game of chess against us.

Part of that has to do with modern culture in western countries, where rates of people diagnosed with anxiety, depression and other similar deseases is sky high.

Afterall, we were brought up with a sense of entitlement that makes us believe constantly that this and that should be ours, that we are special, that we should have a better job, a better relationship, a better house or whatever we aim for.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth.

We are no more entitled to happiness or comfort than any other of the billions of human beings that came before us.

History shows us once and again that there are times of prosperity and times of crisis and a thousand of determinants to how people live, what they´re bound to achieve and what they can expect out of life.

In my opinion, we have inherited this sense of entitlement from the immediate previous generations.

Our parents, brought up and maturing in the 60´s, 70´sand 80´s came to a world where family relations still followed traditional lines, where literacy and especially high studies weren´t yet for the masses and thus they were assured a more predictable economic stability.  

Socialization was a lot different than nowadays.

Many of us where brought up with the same ideas. 

The problem with that is that from the 80´s on the speed of transformation in western societies broke up all the social economic tissue these societies as they were known until then.

We are the offspring of this disintegration. 

We aim for stability and change all at once, without being able to realize that more often than not, one excludes the other. 

That comes from a mind-set of conflicting values between what our parents and peers made us believe to be the right life, what we feel and what seems to be the right thing to do “to go with the flow”. 


The more relationships have evolved in the tech age, the more fragile and replaceable they´ve become, and that brings up our worst fears. 

We are eager of human contact and affection. 

We want to be seen, wanted, appreciated and that sometimes requires to switch off our traits and critical thinking, which doesn´t suit many of us and leads others into a chronic state of mental incoherence.

So what can we look at live the lives we really want to leave?

Here´s some suggestions that might help:

1. Disregard societal definitions of good and bad life style: 

Good and bad are cultural concepts, territorially and timely bound. They have nothing to do with human nature, well being or desires. 

If you live your life self-imposing this concepts on your actions you will never realize that maybe what would make you really happy would be, for instance, to have a simple life working in a farm  because society nowadays tell you that what is good is to be a CEO of a company or do a Phd.

That doesn´t mean that you use this an excuse to wreckless behaviours or conformism because you think you can do no better.

 Sometimes you can do “better”, you just wanna do “worse” cause it´s what is in your heart to do. 

Your life is yours to live only.

2. Take some time every single day to spoil yourself! 

This can mean ANYTHING.

From doing some activity you really like, to buying something you´ve been looking forward to have, take care of your body, or simply doing nothing at all.

Auto-indulgence is one of the hardest things to cultivate, because it requires the ability to say no to external pressures that damage us and a lot of self-love.

 Do a list of things to do before you die and look for opportunities to scratch one off anytime you can!

3. Be self-loving

Whenever you fail or you don´t get what you want, instead of spending all your time and mental energy going through the situation over and over again until it drives you mental, stop and think:

 Is this usefull in terms of contribuiting to my happiness? 

The answer will inevitably be... no! 

Put your time and energy instead on trying to find alternative reasons to why things didn´t go as you planned. 

Some will be things you could have done better, but you will also realize that sometimes you blame yourself a lot for things you didn´t have any way to predict. 

Make peace with yourself and write down proactive things you can actually do to change your situation and reach whatever is that you want and you´ll immediately start to feel better. 

Action has power.

4. Be brave 

Have the courage to cut definitely with everything or everyone that puts you down. 

We all have some people in our lives that do nothing else beside suck our energy and spit out negativity. 

These are the kind of people we do not need at all.

As much as we loved them, we have to love ourselves more to know that our well being and happiness are in front of these people. 

Don´t blame yourself to cut these relationships. 

These people too have their all life to sit down, look inside of themselves, reach out for help and change. They just don´t want to, and it shouldn´t be you to pay the bid. 

Some people are toxic and being around them is only gonna make you worse and stop you from reaching you potential as much as you don´t see it now to be the case. 

Say no today! 

If you don´t wanna be direct, just start shutting them off slowly until the connection wears off. 

Look for other places, people and activities to occupy yourself with. 

You aren´t giving them anything they don´t desearve, even if it is just because they never moved towards anything better in life.

 Surround yourself with people that enlarge your heart!

5. Accept you own nature. 

No one can be happy denying any part of ourselves.

 And surprise, surprise: some parts of you will be in conflict with others! 

You don´t have to be put under any label: 

Who says you can´t be nerd and a party animal? 

Who says you can´t like philosophy and soap operas? 

Who says you can´t express your sexuality freely and still be honourable and full of value? 

These are all prejudices that make people feel miserable. 

Understand that whomever has them is simple not wise and intelligent enough to see people as they are, and you wouldn´t really want the appreciation of dumb people.

Would you?!

6.  Say YES! 

One of the reasons we feel down sometimes if because we are unable to cope with routine. 

People who say yes to new things never suffer from this problem: they are always doing something new, meeting new people and having surprises. 

I understand your concerns about this: sometimes you will have bad surprises. 

But you have to understand that all life and all experience are an inate part of what living is as opposed to being dead. 

Getting out of your comfort zone can be scary, but most of the times will pay off greatly.

7. Choose.  

As simple as that. 

Some time ago I came across this study of Prof. DanGilbert on the importance of synthesizing happiness and it totally resounded with my personal experience. The point of his study was basically that people have the capacity to learn to appreciate what they choose in a scenary of other equaly desirable options.

 More than that people have the capability to come to like more things they initially didn´t rate as 1^st choice. 

And more even: that type of happiness is not only as real as the euphoria provoqued by getting the first choice, as sticking up to what you choose will definitely make you more happy than keeping options open. 

I do subscribe this view totally. 

You have to understand that nothing in this world comes without a price tag. 

Every choice means sacrificing something and that´s how it is. 

It is the commitment, the fact that you are stuck with what you have, that makes you take the time and the patience to look for more angles of appreciation on the things and people you chose to have in your life. 

Without this effort things will always remain shallow and thus you will feel unsatisfied.

8. Be kind. 

Kindness is world changing. 

And it´s not because you´re gonna help someone or because you will feel better about yourself because you posed as "the nice guy". 

Fuck people who do things for others just to post on facebook that they fed a homeless person this morning! 

Of course feeling you did well also comes in the package of course, but it is just the superficial part of it. 

The importance of being kind has to do with the fact that in order to do so, you have to be able to look at the world through the perspective of someone else. 

That will not only make you grow as it will make you more creative and more open towards people and experiences. 

Kindness doesn´t have to be something big, sometimes it begins only with stopping yourself from jumping to conclusions about people you don´t know, but of course, the more ways you find to do it, the more you will find yourself smiling.

9. Learn. 

Whatever you wanted to be or do better, start today. 

Resources are easily available nowadays, and the more productive and active you keep yourself and your brain, the more self-respect you will gain. 

Self-respect is the milestone of a mentally healthy life. 

Other than that, if you don´t wanna learn to do something, learn about psychology and spirituality, learn about how to cope better with the most important person in your life: 

YOU!

Being happy requires a lot of effort. 

Requires a disciplined self-awareness of our mental processes which doesn´t always come naturally and effortlessly. 

If you don´t do your homework on yourself, ultimately it will be you suffering the consequences.

10. Build affective relationships and prioritize what really matters. 

Let´s face it. 

If you can jump ahead a couple of years to a part of your life where you´ll naturally grow old, what would you prefer? 

Be sitting on a pile of money and lonely?

Or...

Be surrounded by people who love you and cherish your life? 

I am not suggesting that this is a either/or situation: it´s not.

Many people build careers and bank accounts quite impressive and manage to have healthy relationships. 

But some of us can´t and end up sacrificing one or the other.

It doesn´t mean that you have to make choices of how to use your time because you´re inferior to anyone: 

maybe you have a disease that limits you, maybe you need more hours of sleep to feel well, maybe you did everything well but you just didn´t have luck somehow. 

You are not less than what you have in you because of anything you can´t control, so you should never feel inferior for your natural circumstances or external limitations.

 If you cannot do a thousand things at the same time, choose building healthy and close relationships and try to be more modest towards material achievements and the urge for social recognition. 

Social approval and more stuff are just things we think we need but they do not carry the seed of happiness. 

This one comes only from the feeling of being seen and felt deeply by another human being, the only feeling able to makes us less lonely in the universe. 

It is obviously a very personal choice, but if you give it a deep thought maybe you get to this conclusion too ;)

Have a great day :)

Some motives why your relationships don´t work out...

“It would never work out!”

 “it´s not you, it´s me…”

“this is just not what I was expecting…” 

Who never heard something like this before?! 

We all have! 

Some of us, unfortunately more than once. 

And we find ourselves feeling rejected and inadequate after a while, thinking to ourselves:

 “what the hell is wrong with me anyway?!” 

and many, many times without any obvious answer to that question. 

We don´t get an answer simple because we aren’t asking the right question.

It is not what is wrong in you, but much more often what is wrong inside of you that you should be looking at. 

I mean, if you compare yourself to other people you consider to have successful relationships on a superficial level as:

“she is not prettier, or smarter, or funnier than me…” 

then all you will be left with is an immense feeling that it can only be karma, which leads you down in a spiral of self-pity that does nothing but make you feel powerless.

So you want to know why it hasn´t worked out for you until now? 

You may find yourself identifying with one or two things I am about to write down:

1. You want a relationship before you fall in love with someone for real. 

Let´s face it: 

We´ve all been there in that situation in which we start to feel that we need someone to keep us company and share our stuff with. 

The problem is instead of falling in love naturally, your standards drop to acommodate basically who you can find at the time.

This doesn´t matter so much in the beginning when you´re still excited about the novelty but after a while you end up thinking “what the hell am I doing with this person?!”

2. You are not in a good mental place towards yourself. And this is a huge problem. 

You can be amazing but if you aren´t feeling amazing, not only you feel more in need of reassurance in a relationship as it is the worst possible moment to get into one. 

You will no doubt let your fears and insecurities reflect on the other persons behaviors and drive them away.

3. You do believe that a relationship is something you need to be happy. 

Well my friend, I won´t lie to you. 

It is no doubt true that relationships are the most rewarding experiences a person can have to feel happy and whole. 

The downside is that a relationship will never make you happy. 

Happiness is a state of mind that has to do with the way you experience life in good and specially in bad situations. 

It has nothing to do with anyone else but you. 

Looking for it in another person will always let you down and make the other person feel frustrated.

4. You have incredible unrealistic standards towards people. 

What I mean is not that you should conform yourself with someone who doesn´t really please you of course. 
But c´monnn…

you will only date damn Orlando Bloom? 

It has to be this, and that, and have that…? 

If you have a list like this to tick boxes you´re due to fail. 

People are not perfect, they all have flaws and downsides which you will have to learn to deal with to be in a successful relationship. 

Another thing is that being with someone perfect would presuppose that you also are, right?!

5. You have incredible unrealistic standards towards relationships. 

Relationships aren´t flowers, hot sex, trips, sunset parties and laugh all the time. 

They are being sick, crying, conciliating difficult things, feeling a little bored and worn out sometimes, going through problems, bureaucracies… 

If you´re not into going through this things with someone, either because you don´t wanna be fragile with someone, or you can´t put up with it, maybe you shouldn´t look for a commited relationship and should look for other types of relationships that suit your needs better.

6. You keep feeling that thrill for that emotionally unavailable (and probably very VERY problematic) person. 

Ok, ok, I get it! 

It is almost irresistible going for the bad ass, for the one no one ever conquered.

 Makes you feel really special when that person picks you right?! 

It has excitement written all over! 

Well.. if you are looking for excitement and that tops up everything else in your needs, you should go for radical activities or something.

 The chances are that THAT person that is a living adventure will be alone first because he doesn´t really want commitments and rather enjoys putting his energy into other things (and many other people) or second because probably you´re looking at someone that has troubles building deep relationships and meaning. 

And these can be any sort of wackos, trust me.

7. You keep displaying a set of traits when you try to attract someone that isn´t who you really are. 

When this happens either one of two happens: either it smells like bullshit immediately and the other person withdraws OR  what´s even worse, you have a very successful relationships….

for two months! 

And after that as a great friend of mine says, all the craziness that was bottled up pops out and you´re heading for disaster.

8. You don´t listen. 

 Take the ability of two people to see and feel each other. 

But how come that happen if you don´t have the time, the patience or the altruism to listen to what the other person is needing from you? 

In time they will start to feel that they are in a lonely boat and just go roaming elsewhere.

9. You don´t invest in yourself.

Relationships have all to do with self-love and self-love is not something that falls upon you from divine grace. 

Arrogance is. 

Self-love is an exercise of investment in a set of behaviours and experiences that are loving towards yourself and make you become bigger and better. 

This includes getting out of your comfort zone.

 If you don´t have the worry to become a better you, in time you will not evolve.

People will get bored by your side and your faults and miseries will still haunt you and thus your relationship too.

10. You aren´t kind enough. 

Love is very much about forgiveness and comprehension of another human being. 

And that includes welcoming into your life the parts of that other person that will hurt you sometimes.

 It means considering the other persons needs and being able to love that person for what she is, being by her side every time she needs to change something she can´t live with, instead of pushing for change in the things you can´t live with.