Hi Mike - it is good to connect again. I liked this. It lands for me. After nearly 35 years with my wife Karen, I've learned that love without a shared vision is like a ship without a rudder — plenty of motion, no direction. In my work as a Vision-Keeper, I talk about "200-year thinking": naming what you're actually building so it can outlast the weather of any given week. Relationships are no different. Karen and I didn't stay grounded because the feelings were always steady — they weren't. We stayed grounded because we kept naming what we were choosing, out loud, even when it was uncomfortable. Clarity isn't the enemy of romance. It's what lets romance last long enough to become legacy. Thank you for putting language to something so many people feel but never say.
Steve, really good to connect again. And I appreciate you sharing this, especially from the perspective of nearly 35 years together.
I’ve come to see the shared vision piece as so important too. Without it, it becomes very difficult to weather the harder seasons, because there isn’t a clear “we” that both people have agreed to create and keep choosing.
And I think there’s another layer to it too. Even when the vision is shared, both people still need the capacity and willingness to keep showing up for it when things get difficult. The vision gives the relationship direction, but we still have to be able to live it.
Mike, yes — that's the piece I'd add too. Vision without capacity is just a nice idea you eventually stop living up to.
I think of it like this: vision tells you where you're building. Capacity is what you build it with — patience, humility, the willingness to repair, the stamina to keep choosing the same "we" on a hard Tuesday, not just on the good days. Karen and I have had plenty of both — the vision and the moments where our capacity ran short of it. What kept us moving wasn't never running short. It was refusing to let the shortfall become the new definition of who we were to each other.
So maybe the fuller sentence is: a shared vision gives two people something to return to, and shared capacity is what makes the returning possible. One without the other doesn't hold for long.
Grateful for the exchange, Mike — this is exactly the kind of thinking that makes the work better for both of us.
I really like that thought about not letting the shortfall define the relationship. It may show where two people are having a hard time, but not necessarily who they are to each other.
Hi Mike - it is good to connect again. I liked this. It lands for me. After nearly 35 years with my wife Karen, I've learned that love without a shared vision is like a ship without a rudder — plenty of motion, no direction. In my work as a Vision-Keeper, I talk about "200-year thinking": naming what you're actually building so it can outlast the weather of any given week. Relationships are no different. Karen and I didn't stay grounded because the feelings were always steady — they weren't. We stayed grounded because we kept naming what we were choosing, out loud, even when it was uncomfortable. Clarity isn't the enemy of romance. It's what lets romance last long enough to become legacy. Thank you for putting language to something so many people feel but never say.
Steve, really good to connect again. And I appreciate you sharing this, especially from the perspective of nearly 35 years together.
I’ve come to see the shared vision piece as so important too. Without it, it becomes very difficult to weather the harder seasons, because there isn’t a clear “we” that both people have agreed to create and keep choosing.
And I think there’s another layer to it too. Even when the vision is shared, both people still need the capacity and willingness to keep showing up for it when things get difficult. The vision gives the relationship direction, but we still have to be able to live it.
Really appreciate your thoughts here.
Mike, yes — that's the piece I'd add too. Vision without capacity is just a nice idea you eventually stop living up to.
I think of it like this: vision tells you where you're building. Capacity is what you build it with — patience, humility, the willingness to repair, the stamina to keep choosing the same "we" on a hard Tuesday, not just on the good days. Karen and I have had plenty of both — the vision and the moments where our capacity ran short of it. What kept us moving wasn't never running short. It was refusing to let the shortfall become the new definition of who we were to each other.
So maybe the fuller sentence is: a shared vision gives two people something to return to, and shared capacity is what makes the returning possible. One without the other doesn't hold for long.
Grateful for the exchange, Mike — this is exactly the kind of thinking that makes the work better for both of us.
I really like that thought about not letting the shortfall define the relationship. It may show where two people are having a hard time, but not necessarily who they are to each other.