From an online comment on Alain DeBotton's New York Times article, Why You Will Marry The Wrong Person:
"A world authority on snow safety once said, 'You really can't call yourself an avalanche expert until you've been in an avalanche.' We so often take the plunge, no matter how cautiously measured, before we're old enough and experienced enough to have learned ourselves enough to unite in love in a sustainable way. We are in love but don't know ourselves enough to know what we need from our partner and how to understand them well enough to love them like we want to. Some evolve into truly connected mutual understanding surrounded by love, and some trudge on out of a sense of commitment, yet never evolve. It took me 24 years to know I had failed in my first attempt so I could finally complete the process of learning myself well enough to be the partner true love requires for sustainability. A permanent union in love requires understanding each other with complete acceptance - all the while being able to continually celebrate each other via the perfect feeling that true love is. You don't know it until you are living it. Maybe good fortune favors the prepared. I feel very fortunate to now be among the luckiest ones." -Anonymous
And there it is, the seed of what it means to be in love and have a meaningful relationship; before we can live life well or live "our best life" as is so often referred to, we have to do the work of knowing ourselves.
Some might dismiss this as contradictory. How can we wake up each day and do anything without knowing who we are?
I suggest most of us do just that. We go through the motions. Conditioned as children to follow the herd, obey, and do "what works", we grow into automatons who've long since lost touch with what ignites us. We make superficial choices that delude us into thinking that we're at the helm as we go to a movie, buy our favorite ice cream flavor, etc. But so often an unexpected life-altering event causes us to examine what is at our essence, that desire we've buried in the survival of day-to-day, and we are called back to realignment.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many continue to ignore that call to validity and go to their graves with a malaise bred from a life unlived. My father was one such guy. I believe the biggest hindrance to a life of fulfillment is no one teaches us to dig deep about what we really want and why. When we're young, we aren't taught to meditate or even to wonder. It requires too much time, guidance, and introspection.
And this ultimately hinders true love. Knowing ourselves takes work.
Love, in the greatest sense of the word, encompasses more than just the romantic which is why it is defined not only by couples but people of all groupings. It even exists between people and non-human things, animals, for example, or hobbies or collections. Love is in this world, but not of it which is why we can't make it happen. It is a state we conjure when we have a vision and throw so much of ourselves into it we're enraptured. Call it a frequency, a mindset, luck... it is a world we tap into when we're determined - first with ourselves.
The older I get the more I'm convinced of this truth. In fact, this is one of the things I love about getting older; we know ourselves so much better. Mid-life puts us in great proximity to find the love of our lives.
It's one of the greatest paradoxes: if we love ourselves completely, we'll attract an equal.
What are you waiting for?
Comments