Love isn't easy.
Cliche, right? Well, sometimes it's easy to forget. With all the attention the media gives to celebrity relationships, and with the idealistic way they are portrayed in television and movies, it's not hard to have a skewed perspective on what love actually looks like.
In this day and age, love is thrust upon us from an early age, more so than ever before. Disney movies all focus on a princess waiting for her prince, and TV shows like "Jessie," "iCarly" and "Bunk'D" often feature a love interest for one or more main characters. I understand why: it's an easy plot device, it can be quite entertaining, and in some aspects, it's supposed to help young adults and children understand love and relationships.
The only problem: portraying these characters and their relationships as some idealistic, perfect romance can be more harmful than beneficial.
I have noticed most in my generation, the generation that began this and grew up on this. We have this idea of what a perfect relationship is like, and if our relationship doesn't match that, we're unhappy. We spend all our time looking for our Prince Charming, or our Topanga, or our Cory for that matter. When that doesn't happen, we beat ourselves up and blame ourselves for being incompetent at love. We use our inexperience in real world relationships as the reason, but really, it is our unwavering devotion to a world created for the screen that destroys us.
We draw from what we know, and at such young ages, all we know are television and movies.
But let's change that.
As a generation that was left heartbroken and alone because we could never seem to get it right, let's promise to not do that to our own children. The media, television, movies and music all teach the idea that we need another person to complete us, that we need to find our better half to ever hope of achieving happiness. That mantra should die with our childhood.
We can no longer afford to be hurt by the fact that we never had a boyfriend during high school. We can no longer afford to be destroyed by never having our first kiss until we're 25. We can no longer afford to sit idly by, waiting like Cinderella for our prince to come rescue us from our dungeon. We can no longer wait for Rapunzel to come and wake us up from our old dreams. We have to fix it ourselves. It's time that we stop waiting for love to come along, and start loving ourselves.
Why should we spend all our time waiting for a better half to come along when we are so perfect ourselves? Why wait for a better half when we are already whole? We don't need someone else to come along and complete us. We can stand alone, and it's time we start embracing that and passing it down. I don't want my children to grow up in a world that puts so much emphasis on falling in love and having a cookie cutter life. I want my children to feel free to exist on their own, without anyone else.
They should not have to decide what they want in life by the happiness of another. They should be free to travel, to work, to experience life, without companionship. As a society, we focus so much on doing everything with the ones you love, making it seem like being alone is so dangerous and lonely. But it's not. You discover yourself when you're alone. You discover what you really want from life, and you grow.
It seems like in the world today, in books, in television, in movies, in life, no one is truly happy until they have found their soulmate or their true love. Let's end that ideal.
Instead, let's romanticize sitting in a coffee shop alone, reading a book. Let's romanticize travelling the world alone, learning new languages, taking pictures of natures, selfies with mountain ranges. Let's romanticize sitting in another country alone, eating dinner and a handsome stranger doesn't approach you. You enjoy your meal, you enjoy the scenery and being alone with your thoughts, and then you go back to your room, tired from your day of exploration, and you sleep soundly. Alone.
Let's romanticize the idea that being alone doesn't equate to being lonely.
We're the generation of the new romantics. So let's romanticize loving yourself before loving anyone else.
