Relationships are opportunities to express yourself physically, and gratitude is acknowledgement of an opportunity taken. How do you see yourself in relationship to all others and your environment? Do you see yourself, as kind/cruel, loving/hateful, generous/stingy, peaceful/restless or something else? If you know yourself as one of these, then you will have a desire to express yourself in some way. Relationships are opportunities to express these aspects of self. An opportunity is nothing more than a time and place to demonstrate that you are a kind person or a cruel person or whatever. All of life needs to express itself, and getting involved with another is that opportunity that you have drawn to yourself to say "here I am," "I am kind," "I am cruel," or anything else that you wish to express. This is the purpose of the relative world. It is the forum, the time and place to experience what you believe that you are and to declare it. Personal relationships with lovers, partners, family, relatives, friends and strangers facilitate expression of your being. Without relationships you would be nothing because you could not express yourself and you could not declare that you are one thing or the other. You cannot demonstrate love unless you have the opportunity to experience love, and you cannot say that you are loving unless you have the opportunity to be loving. With the opportunity to express oneself in a relationship comes the responsibility to express gratitude for the opportunity. Gratitude is merely an acknowledgement of having a thing. It is a declaration of ownership. If you have received a thing, then you must acknowledge it before it becomes yours. "I am grateful," merely says that I have received what I desired. All relationships work, because they are opportunities to express yourself positively or negatively. They may be accepted or rejected, but nevertheless they are opportunities and they must be acknowledged through gratitude. It is the human condition to say that a relationship worked or it didn't, but at a different perspective all relationships work. With this higher thought, one begins to see all of life as a giant buffet. One begins to see abundance and opportunity in an endless sea of choices. And because this new awareness sets one free to choose, you will always see opportunity and welcome relationships, good or bad! Marriage and divorce are such opportunities. They are perfect times to express your higher self and your darkest side. Close partnerships bring the best opportunities because they are the closest and most difficult to turn away from. There is urgency to react to the issues at hand because they are in your face. They are wonderful opportunities to act or react in your own best interest. The person in you life that you are at odds with the most, offers you the greatest opportunity to demonstrate who you are. "Good or bad," "right or wrong," are poor ways to describe relationships. All relationships are good, and all relationships work for you, even if it is an opportunity to walk away from them. And all of these opportunities are drawn to you by yourself because of your desire to express yourself. The driver that cuts you off in traffic brings opportunity for you to react. At that moment at some level of your consciousness you need to experience, anger, pity, tolerance or understanding. This careless driver is an Angel (opportunity) that you asked for, whether you can fully appreciate it in the moment or not. In a higher state of awareness you would bless him/her for their gift (opportunity) to you. Even in so called failing relationships there are just as many opportunities to express or experience yourself because there really is no such thing as a failing relationship. There is only an opportunity for you to see that the relationship as failing or not. There are new opportunities here to restore the relationship, walk away from it or turn it into something even better or worse. There is a chance to suffer in it or rise above it. Physical love is a poor reason to enter into a relationship blindly. Love is life, and life moves. Unless the partners are prepared to grow in a relationship it is doomed to fail in physical terms. Relationships must always be a declaration of self growth and opportunity. Over time, physical love may no longer be experienced but the opportunities for growth never dies and one may still be able to express gratitude for the opportunity that the partner has brought them. If relationships are seen as opportunities then it is always a win/win experience for all persons involved. Relationships are also opportunities for one to reflect on self. If you can put yourself into the position of the silent observer, you can reflect on your experience and make adjustments to your thoughts about all the issues that came up. You can choose to see the relationship as only positive and beneficial to you. Relationships that are seen as only good or bad, right or wrong are doomed to only those choices. Seen as opportunities, they all become beneficial and good. Relationships cannot be experienced as good or beneficial until they are acknowledged through an expression of gratitude.