List 1: What are the necessary qualities my future wife should hold.

We all know people that are deep into relationships in which their partner is not as similar to them as they would like. This is largely because one or neither of said partners wrote down their values before committing to a relationship. It is crucial to share fundamental values with friends and partners.  I believe that the more time you will be spending with someone, the more values the 2 parties should share.

List 2: What are the qualities in a person that I will not tolerate.

In many ways this is the inverse of the first list. It also pertains to all people, not just spouses. Some of mine are negativity, inability to listen, or a lack of value of personal health. 

Point: Constantly be interacting with these lists. Whether you are reading them, adding to them, or shrinking them, the more you get your “hands” dirty and think about these lists, the quicker they will become implicit in your memory. Thus, they quicker they will naturally influence how you make and break relationships.

This all ties back to a study I hope to write more about soon. In the study, the social circle of individual apes was highly predictive of how they behaved. More concisely put, apes are the average of the 5 people they interact with most. This could potentially show how important the quality of the people with whom you hold deep relationships is to your own being.

Something to chew on.

Michael