Relationships are full of compromise. Together, couples will face all sorts of challenges and problems along the way.

It is already difficult enough to maintain a good, stable relationship, so trying to change your partner on top of that seems ridiculous.

You see it in movies all the time. The female protagonist gets with the scary bad boy, and it turns out he’s not so scary—but only because of her. One way or another, she changes him for the better and they live happily ever after. That’s not how real life works.

In real life, that scary bad boy is probably just that. Or possibly a scary girl, because gender equality is important.

Human beings are creatures of habit and schedule; we often repeat the same tendencies without even noticing it. Assuming that just because a romantic relationship is established that someone will change, and change for you, is a bit much.

It’s not likely that someone will truly change; people don’t become someone else without years of reform and dedication to their decision to become someone else.

Attempting to change someone for the better isn’t bad or wrong, but there has to be a willingness to change present in the person with the problem or else there is no point.

At best, your partner might pretend to be different to make you happy. There are other ways of trying to change your partner that are much less extreme but no less annoying.

For example, say a girl has a lot of male friends. Boyfriend comes along and expects her to no longer hang out with those friends.

Demanding someone to stop hanging out with friends just because they happen to be the opposite gender or potential “competition” is the fastest way to switch from a good relationship to a bad one.

Expecting your partner to give up any of their hobbies or habits, that aren’t detrimental to anyone’s health, is overbearing and very controlling.

Really, it just makes you a villain figure between the two of you.

The thing about relationships is that they do not have to be perfect.

Couples don’t have to spend all day, every day together. You can manage just fine on your own without each other, just as you were before. Maintaining your relationship rests with compromising.

Talk about things that bother you, discuss them and calmly tell your partner why you dislike it so much. Communication really is everything. Be open to adjusting your schedule, but your partner should as well.

If situations are reversed and you are the one with the annoying habit, try not to get offended and work it out like adults.

Relationships aren’t about changing who you are to fit someone else’s idea or perception of you.

They definitely shouldn’t cost you the things you love. If we stop trying to change one another to fit our list of what makes perfect a perfect girlfriend or boyfriend, maybe it would work out better.

We’re not perfect. Humans are imperfect beings, and we should accept the flaws that make us who we are.

And if you can’t, there is most likely someone else out there that you will be able to accept completely, and can accept you in return.

Religion can be spoken about freely, yet we tread softly when publically mentioning it.

But, the hardest idea to grasp is that having the right to spread religious awareness is certainly not the same as pushing beliefs on others.

While people reserve the right to practice religious freedom and to speak without restraint about any faith they choose, forcing others to listen isn’t freedom of speech; it’s harassment.

There are over 127 major religions and seven billion people on earth with seven billion different views of God. Some love Him, some fear Him, some question His existence and some are still searching for Him.

Some will decide that God plays no role in the trials and tribulations of life, while others will find faith the moment they see their newborn child take the first breath of being.

Whether we discover where we spiritually belong in a pew on Sunday morning or on a lonely drive with no destination, the journey to finding or forgetting God is what determines our views. We can’t be told what and who to believe in, or to even believe in anything at all.

What we learn, who we meet and the challenges we face are what we remember when we stand before Him, not the church members that knock on our front doors, or the people that stand in the quad condemning us all to hell.

And if the church goer at your front door changes your perspective, let them. Be baptized in one church, change your mind, and be baptized in another. Let what you learned in biology class make you question evolution and the powers above.

Learning from life experiences and questioning God’s ways isn’t sin; it’s human. It’s human to change emotionally, mentally, and spiritually when physical surroundings change. It’s human to simply be curious and indecisive.

Faith only exists because there are people that believe strongly enough in it to make it a reality and a way of life. Without doubters and differences, the strength of religion would never have anything to be measured against.

Because of that, religion without true belief is weak.

Never practice out of habit, don’t follow just because your parents or friends do, and don’t ever think one religion is superior to another. In a time that seems to have the explanation for everything in a test tube or on a database, people believing in any God at all is a miracle in itself.