I said 50-50 is flawed. Some days it isn’t even close, and I’ve learned to live with that.
In my last post, I wrote that 50-50 is flawed, and that real life, for me, sits closer to 51-49. After I posted it, a friend made a point I haven’t stopped thinking about. The days that push me to make a big decision are rarely 51-49. They are 80-20, or 100-0.
I think my friend is right. So this post is my attempt to work out what that means.
Some weeks are plainly 100-0. Someone at home is unwell, or a friend is going through a really bad patch. In those weeks nobody is giving half. One side carries almost everything. I don’t think that’s a flaw. I think that is simply how life works when I live close to other people.
I like to call myself independent
I’ve always been proud to call myself independent. I stand on my own feet. It feels good to say. But asking for help feels like owing someone, so I tend to avoid it and call that strength. The help happens anyway. I’m not an island. I never was. I’m independent in a few things, and I lean on other people for the rest. That doesn’t make me smaller. It makes me a person.
School showed me this early
I captained my school cricket team. Going in, ours was tipped to be the weakest of the four teams. Two of the others had players who simply knew how to hit the ball and score runs. I wouldn’t always call it good technique, but in a trophy tournament, that’s what counted.
So we went in as the team nobody expected much from. And we won the cup.
It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t one or two players. It was the whole eleven, plus the rest of the squad, around fifteen of us. Everyone gave their 100%. But nobody was a 100 every time. It was 80-20 for some, 60-40 for others, 51-49 on a normal day, and it kept changing from person to person. Whoever had a good day carried the rest.
I didn’t think of it that way back then. It went in quietly and stayed there. Years later, something happens at work or at home, and I remember that team. Oh. That’s what that was. A cup won by fifteen people, none of whom could have won it alone.
It’s the same everywhere I look. My parents gave a full 100 for years, and I’m still trying to give some of it back. Even strangers do it, like the neighbour who takes in my parcel and expects nothing back.
The days that decide things
My friend’s point is simple, and I can’t argue with it. The biggest decisions of my life didn’t happen on ordinary 51-49 days. They happened when the weight was clearly on one side.
The one I think about most is moving to Bangalore, back in 2017–18. I had finished my articleship in Hyderabad, and I was heading to Bangalore for industrial training. I was fairly new to everything, and I didn’t know a lot. People around me had plenty to say. Some were worried. Some were excited because it was a big name. It was a lot of noise to make one decision in.
I could have listened to a few of them and stayed back. I didn’t. Deep down, I knew this was a switch I wanted, and that’s what was pulling me. It didn’t matter what name tag anyone else gave it. That was a 100-0 decision. Not 80-20. Not 51-49. Here, 100-0 doesn’t mean someone carried me. It means I was fully sure.
But I didn’t reach 100-0 in a single day. On the way there, some days were 80-20, and many more were 51-49. Those ordinary days laid the foundation. From the outside, the decision may have looked sudden. It wasn’t.
Work taught me something similar. When I started working, I learned that nobody works for me. It’s me. How things turn out depends on how I perform and what perspective I hold. Whether someone likes my choice, or whether their opinion rubs off on me, doesn’t change that. I still listen. I’m grateful for the well-wishers, and many of them know far more than I do. But the final call has to be mine. That doesn’t clash with leaning on people. They carry me through the days. The decision is still mine to make.
When a decision is 80-20 instead, I’ve learned that the 20 doesn’t go away. I carry it. I don’t take that as a sign I chose wrong.
And in relationships
Relationships work the same way. Day to day, it’s 50-50, 51-49, 49-51, all of it. That’s the foundation, and it’s not visible to anyone else, and often not even to the other person, unless I sit down, zoom out and think it through. Then a 100-0 moment comes, and the decision rests on all those ordinary days.
People say a good relationship is 50-50. In my experience it rarely is. Sometimes it’s 80-20. Sometimes, for a while, it’s 100-0. When I’m the one giving 80, I want that 80 to be a full 100 of me. I don’t want to give 80 while keeping one eye on the 20 I’m not getting. When I carry, I want to carry properly, without a running count in my head. The 20 that comes back might be all the other person has that day. That’s their 100. I’ve been the 20 as well, and I’m grateful to the people who carried me anyway.
I don’t think there’s room for ego in a relationship. Ego asks, who’s winning? Who said sorry first? Who did more? Those questions belong in a contest, and a relationship isn’t one. Self-respect is different. It’s still there. When I care deeply, it sits in the back seat. It doesn’t disappear, and it doesn’t need to speak up every day.
But back seat doesn’t mean gone. This works only when the tilt is temporary and comes back around. If I’m always at 100 and the other person is always at 0, that isn’t leaning on each other. That’s when self-respect has to move to the front seat and say something. It needs an honest conversation, not more silent giving.
So what do I do with this?
50-50 is a nice idea. 51-49 is how most of my days feel. Sometimes it’s 80-20, or even 100-0, and I’ve stopped calling that unfair. It’s what happens when I live close to other people. And since the big days are built on the ordinary ones, I try to look after the ordinary 51-49 days too.
I’m flexible because I have to be. I bend, I cover for others, I lean, and I get leaned on. I can keep calling myself independent. It sounds good. But I think I’m interdependent, and I’ve been a little too proud to say it.
So when I’m giving far more than I’m getting, or getting far more than I’m giving, I try not to look for the weighing scale. I ask a simpler question. Who needs more today?
Then I do that.
I never stood alone. Not once.