Okay, it’s time for some input from you Crazy Cats today. ‘Your Turn to Teach’ day is the day when you have the opportunity to walk up the front of our cyber-classroom and share your thoughts, ideas, experiences and lessons. There’s no right or wrong here at me-dot-com, just individual expression, so don’t be shy.
I’ve spoken on this site before about The 5 Love Languages written by Dr. Gary Chapman. It’s one of my fave books because it shares some incredible insights into the various ‘languages’ that make us complex creatures feel loved. Apart from exploring what floats our boat, these ‘languages’ also reveal what a person really values, needs, wants and treasures. Some recent experiences have led me to come up with my own addition to the good Doc’s list. I hope he doesn’t mind.
I’m calling the new addition Craig’s Love Language:
Reliability.
I gotta say, I don’t hate many things but I do hate a lack of reliability. With a passion. People who are unreliable don’t tend to stay in my personal or professional orbit for long. I love knowing I can rely on a person all the time. Every time.
I love making appointments and knowing the person will be on time. Every time. I love working on projects with people knowing that they will deliver on a promise. Every time. I love people who walk the talk. All the time. Reliable people make life better for everyone in their world. They provide a level of certainty, confidence and predictability that many people don’t.
So, what quality (attribute) do you value most in your relationships and why?
Because I’m ace, I’ll give away some prizes for the responses that rock my world. 
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Emotional stability.
I don’t want people in my life who are like emotional time-bombs, and you never know when they’re gonna go off. Because I don’t wanna play the savior or try to be extra-careful around them.
My love language is cooking – anyone else who cooks for me is awesome, because I dislike it so much the vast majority of the time!!
I love an empathetic listener – someone who nods, smiles and makes remarks to indicate they’re with you, in the here and now.
Nothing radiates love and understanding better.
And nothing creates connections better than love and understanding.
Mon ( )
oh, I have enjoyed thinking about this one. I like loyalty. Steadfastness, honesty- you know ‘keeping it real’. Not having to think, geez- what do you say about ME when I am not here if that’s how you talk about HER!
I would add to the above, I really value friends/family who make me laugh. Ones who can chase away the blues, share the joy, and remember the good times and plan for more.
Someone who gets in my world without feeling that they have to fix it or do anything about what is going on for me. Sometimes I just want to “be gotten”. And with that, I want someone in my life who calls forth my greatness, who doesn’t react to my “stuff”.
It’s the combination of ruthless and compassion which is generous.
Hello, Wow I love these. The timing on this post amazes me. I just got out of a meeting and this is what I was talking about. Teachings on my lowest of low experience to where I have been and where I am now in my life. I value and respect other peoples opinions on what they believe. I am finding many people are hurting in this time. I do my best with my own personal experience to encourage them. To help them truly find their happiness. No one in life have to be stuck. I have been there and have become unstuck. I agree with Craig. Reliability is what I value myself. I am one of those people. I have also found through my journey which I have totally grown and continue to grow is sharing the love. I believe when we chose to love success and wealth will follow. I am a people person. To me it does not matter where or which country you come from we are all connected together in this life. Please allow me to share with you on which I blog about on my own blog which is encouraging others in my journey of life. While I help and encourage others I myself grow. I become so drawn to it.
One night I was laying there in bed drifting in and out of sleep. I suddenly realized as if for a second I step out of my body and discovered the real me. Not how others perceive me but me. I thought my body is like a house. I must dwell in it. Without the body how was I to learn and to do things in helping others. It was a feeling of love,peace,joy no words could ever describe the feeling in which I felt. I thought thats it to me I call it the holy spirit, others can call it what you will. Nothing else matters except for love. Material things will come after but first I must have love. During my journey I have also found that I’m a very empathetic person at times I wish I was not because I really feel others pain. I have been through alot in my life and discovered no matter what happens it is not the end of the world. Never no matter what give up. I am an example of that. I went from losing loved ones to almost losing my home and also losing my possessions that I have worked so hard for. I came through it. Therefore anyone can. We are all worthy. We all deserve the best what ever you choose it to be for you. Always give a smile just knowing you may be causing a good ripple effect.
Out with the negative in with the positive. I believe when we change our mind everything changes.
My love and hugs to you Craig and everyone who reads this.
I thank each and everyone of you. I am truly blessed
Effort.
I value when people try. They don’t have to be the best and they don’t even have to necessarily succeed – but if they really try then that is their gift to me.
Punctuality! If a meeting is scheduled to start at 09:00 then it should start at 09:00. People who put a greater value on their time than mine drive me nuts (assuming I was sane to start with). If friends or family tell me they will meet me at a certain time I find it very hard not to be angry when they are five minutes late.
Unfortunately this same desire for punctuality sometimes turns me into psycho dad when I realise my children’s ideas about ‘getting ready’ are very different to mine when we are about to walk out the door to go somewhere. I do try to explain but I think the concept just seems very strange to them from the looks I get back…..
I love friends who are not afraid to give and receive HUGS.. Simple touch..
I worked for an organisation that claimed that people and relationships were its primary value. This was great, except that the managers didn’t emulate the same value. I also attended a religious gathering regularly (not any more) which was led by gung-ho leaders claiming all sorts of principles which they didn’t live up to either.
My point is, that when it comes to values, I reckon one of the biggies has got to be integrity. Integrity is being who you say you are, and doing what you say you will. It’s a transparency and consistency of character that requires a person to be self-aware and able to conduct their own ‘internal audits’ to ensure they are measuring up to their own standards.
A person of integrity will have the ability to make others feel confident and safe with them psychologically. It means that their behaviours will not be unpredictable or volatile. They will have a consistency about them that matches their mouths with their actions. It’s a beautiful thing really.
A person with no integrity will have a sort of disconnect between their heads and their hearts. Their perceptions of who they are is very different to what others see about them.
Integrity is not something you can just switch on or off like a light switch. It’s a learned value. If you become aware of an inconsistency in your life, you can take steps to rectify it. Sometimes these are not so obvious. So it brings with it an attitude of willingness to do the internal audit and adjust accordingly.
Integrity. Challenging. Confronting. But without it, relationships and life in general would be pretty crappy.
Yeah I agree integrity and do what you say… I can not stand people who turn up late.. or dont do what they say they will. I dont care if you dont do it but dont say you will when you wont…
Am glad you mentioned the books name again as I was looking for it yesterday but couldnt remember what it was called.
Kate
i really value authenticity.
mostly because it includes so many other great qualities, like honesty and courage and self-acceptance. there’s no true intimacy with authenticity. people who are willing to show up and be seen and accepted or rejected for who they truly are, generally rock my world.
Got to agree with a couple of these:
High C – integrity. Absolutely. Admit it when you have done wrong and be accountable.
Cdn Friend – effort. Definately. If a mistake is made, OK. But I don’t see any excuse for being lazy.
For me – being open. That doesn’t mean you reveal everything, just be up front about it. I hate having conversations where it’s obvious that detail is being held back in order to be ‘correct’. If you don’t want to talk/reveal, then just say so but don’t dance around the issue.
All the things above of course are really relevant, but above everything I believe that listenning is the key to love. If you really hear what is being said then you can respond appropriately (always or most times at least). Of course it is not a done deal just because you have heard what has been said – it will often take questioning to understand. The person who follows just because something has been said is not the person I would want to love, I would want them to be interested enough in what they had heard to discuss, question and respond. This then makes you feel valued. I have recently had a relationship where my new partner suggested a weekend away as a “get to know one another”. Over the course of several days I listened and questioned (him) but what was sadly lacking was the fact that he was really only interested in himself – it appeared he was there to get to know himself, because he really didn’t ask me the questions in return – so reciprocating the interest to make someone feel worthy is essential for love to work.
Growth.
Having someone that is able to be a support and holds a willingness to understand where you are coming from. Someone who works towards the relationship and is able to look at themselves and do what they need to do to better their quality of life which in turn brings a better quality to the relationship. It would help the other feel valued and accepted and keeps the relationship moving in a positive direction.
One thing I value in my relationships is having someone actually Listen to my concerns and not dismiss my views/fears/needs as unimportant. Trusting someone with what is important to you and then have that dismissed as ‘nothing’ can knock you hard.
Hi Craig,
My favorite quality is consistency.
I value family,friends and associates who are are consistent in mood, attitude and actions.
We are all human have bad days and let ourselves down.
Consistently strive to be true to ourselves and others. Flaws then become less frequent and serious and fade into insignificance.
Regards
Brian
Safety,
I love feeling safe and having people stand up for me and fight for me when I am not there. Protecting me and being loyal.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE,
I value someone who has emotional intelligence, I have seen many people who are taught from young kids to supress feelings and emotions( tough en up!). I have been in relationships where the person had the inability and was uncomfortable with displaying or communicating emotions/ feelings in general! I’m not talking about the ‘ big public displays of affection’ here!
I am more content with myself and have found someone who is emotionally intelligent and I think that’s half the battle being able to articulate with the opposite sex throwing the Venus and mars theory about and meeting someone who can compliment your life!
Sent from my iPhone
Craig you make me laugh,
‘Because i’m ace’ – real humility right there from the big guy @ me dot com;).
I agree with Kate on the integrity thing but before that happens I think the ability to see past the flaws in a person is the thing i most value in a relationship.
In order to develop any relationship you have to get to know people and i have had a serious wake-up call in the past week. I went to work with someone for 3 years and always thought they were a freak because of the way they dressed and acted. I was forced into asking them a question last week and they turned out to be a really nice person who also happened to sell really nice cookies (for charity). We got talking over the biscuits (shush all you health concious ones out there) and she turned out she was involved with childrens charities and healping others less fortunate.
To say i felt small was a massive understatement. I wonder how many of you also ignore a person and not develop a relationship beacuse of a judgement call you make when you first meet someone?
Loyalty, honesty and respect.
Where is any human relationship without these?
Definately – Reliability is a MUST – helps me to believe the other person is crediable – words are cheap and actions speak louder.. Another big one for me is HONESTY – need to know that others will be honest (both positive and negative) – this helps to facilitate growth and I am an optimist who believes that all can be overcome in relationships if people are honest with each other (very few relationships out there like this). The flip side is knowing the person is open to recieve honesty without being defensive.
haha, Mick so you and the cookie mucher! do I smell an office relationship?
Only joking…
I think tolerance is the most important quality in a relationship. I don’t mean putting up with someone, but rather embracing their individuality and not expecting them to change to suit our own agenda.
We are always being told (by the media, friends, family) how we ‘should’ behave, but it is wonderful to be with someone who just lets us be ourselves.
… and all of this without judgement!
We’ve all got enough going on without constantly being judged by others. In the immortal words of Paul McCartney, “Let It Be”.
Simplicity – I think too often we over complicate things especially relationships. I love being with people who are good energy and don’t play games with your emotions, people who keep true to their word, who are attuned (they are hearing when listening) and someone who loves you for being you.
Simplicity in essence is understanding that to feel good, make others feel good.
Kate I don’t mind lateness so long as they say they are late, but I really want to take you up on the ‘they won’t do what they say’ bit.
I totally agree. That comes with a couple of conditions:
1. No one has to do anything for me
2. Never take it personally when the other person thinks they have done nothing wrong
The biggest value I have is:
Say what you mean, don’t hide, don’t go all silent on me, if you are not interested on any level, business or personal, say so.
But they don’t.
How many people say they want friends or a relationship but never call? You find out later they do this to others. It’s stupid. So my value is, say something if something cannot be done or not wanted, say so, but I find people don’t.
I agree with Trish – tolerance is the closest to what I think is my highest value. But the lack of judgement part is also necessary. To me, the word “tolerance” always has an air of judgement about it and therefore selfishness and perhaps even one-upmanship, e.g. “I don’t agree with his way of living, but I can tolerate it”, i.e. “look at how cool I am, to be able to tolerate others”. Without judgement, there is no selfishness involved, just “live and let liveness”. I need to work on this one.
Acceptance. Simple. I am who I am, yes I can always change for the better we all can. You don’t have to necessarily like every thing about me or me of you, Acceptance of me, totally. I will then have total acceptance of you, all that makes you who you are.
Effort – I totally understand that it is my issue, but I need to feel that the people in my life make an effort.
At work that speaks for itself.
In my personal life I tend to assume people tolerate rather than enjoy my company unless they sometimes make the effort to see or call me instead of it being always me that arranges things. People who never make any effort make me feel like cr@p.
Reliability – I won’t repeat your words back to you! But ‘ditto’.
Having said all that I am ridiculously loyal and tolerant… it can take years before I finally give up on someone and stop making excuses for the fact that they are never going to be the type of person I need them to be!
Hi Craig,
my values are honesty and respect. I believe if a person is honest you have someone you can believe in ,someone you can rely on and someone you can trust. A feeling of safety, security and protection.
Also respect is really important because when a person respects you he respects your opinion and ideas without criticism or judgement. He gives you your personal space to breathe and grow. Respect is about giving support and strength to your partner to help them grow.
I think one of the qualities I value the most is being non-judgemental. Give yourself and others the chance to get to know you without making a snap judgement by how someone looks or how they are acting when you first meet them. Many people suffer from shyness that can manifest itself in many ways such as not saying much or the opposite, coming on strong from lack of confidence.
The person you dismiss as not worth your while to know could have been the best friend you have been looking for all your life.