Seventy-three percent of people believe in a “soul mate” or just a single person they are destined to be with. While this idea is romantic, and kinda awesome, it completely removes the fact that love is action oriented, not feelings oriented.
Zounds!
Having held to this belief for many years, friends much wiser than myself began to show me that this belief is flawed, but its not necessarily a belief that we consciously chose to believe.
1. We’ve been raised to believe in a “one true love” mentality.
What Disney movie doesn’t set us up to believe that the male and female lead roles were destined to be together? Two far flung souls who wind up together by random chance and fall in love instantly. While it does make a great story, most people meet people through mutual friends, not through some epic tale of adventure (although I would thoroughly enjoy that.)
I can’t recall that ever happening to myself, otherwise I would be happily engaged in romantic comedy antics instead of writing this article at Starbucks on a Thursday evening.
2. Soul mate implies that the marriage has to work and it should be easy.
Most of us understand that marriage is a huge commitment, but most of us don’t fully understand its difficultly. Growing up, I assumed that I would find a nice a girl and we end up together and that everything would be perfect.
The thing is, marriage may be the hardest thing a person can commit to. Too often people fall under the guise that since their marriage is so frustrating, tiring, etc., that maybe this person wasn’t their “soul mate.” Sometimes these thoughts end in divorce.
There is a divorce in the United States every 36 seconds. You have to work at a marriage. It doesn’t just magically turn out great.
What.
3. We can’t find love because we can’t define love.
Is it a feeling? An emotion? A thought? A myth? The way I feel about Cool Ranch Doritos? Maybe that last one, but it's far beyond what most of us think about. It’s beyond reason. It goes against our primal nature of self preservation.
So what is love then? For starters, it’s not anxiously searching for your soul mate on Tinder. True love is this: fighting for the highest good of another.
Love is an action.
Emotions rise and fall, but commitment is steady. If you are looking for your soul mate, you are trying to fill a void in your heart. You are trying to find completeness and force another person into that position to fill it.
I’ve been there. Done that. Four times. It doesn’t work. Like, at all. In fact there isn’t a single human being that can fix, restore or complete your brokenness. To find that, you need search a little deeper, a little higher, and just a bit to the right.
*ahem*
Excuse me.
I don’t want to be harsh; just honest. This is a super big giant annoying problem for me, so I’m just as much writing this to myself as to you all. So take a deep breath and maybe even dance a little bit.
Love is hard, and nothing is painless. So take it easy, and focus on whats going on in your life now. Who knows? Maybe you’ll just find someone special.
