Hey guys/gals,
I realize there was a lot of sarcasm in my previous MyTake (but also a lot of truth behind it as well) that does not transpire when reading articles on the web, so I would like to clarify a few things. I know that a lot of young people might be very impressionable so I don't want anyone to really take some of the things I wrote seriously...
Loving yourself is important. And I don't mean that you should blow off relationships and having a family to focus on your career and traveling the world or whatever. Loving yourself should be about respecting yourself enough to do the things you WANT to do and being strong enough to get out of situations that are unhealthy, as difficult as it may be.
BUT, it also depends on what your goals are in life.
I realize that a lot of people in my life will make decisions based on their goals, or lack there-of.
Someone who really wants to get married and have a family might have lower expectations than someone who is comfortable with the possibility of not getting married and having a family. This is called "settling" and this may or may not be OK. I don't know... because I DO know that a few of my girlfriends were very depressed that they were single, but when they found a guy who wanted to marry them, they wrestled with the idea of "settling". And before you say "how do you know?", I'll tell you how I know.. because they wrestled this question with ME.
The question always is:
Do I marry this guy, who I do not love, or do I blow away what could be the only opportunity I might have to getting married?
I never answer this question, I usually just stare at them, because I don't want to be responsible for THAT decision. These women have always chosen to marry though.
I don't know if this is OK or not. I know it's not OK for me. But I'm okay with being single forever. If I met the right guy who made it seem worth it for me to give up being single, then I would be OK with that too.
And it's not as though I was never faced with that decision. I too once was faced with this choice but I knew I would not be happy marrying this guy, and I also knew that if I wasn't happy I could not make him happy. It was a guy that I grew up with and I loved him a lot, just not in a romantic way. After I turned him down we didn't speak for 3 months because it was so awkward, but then we became good friends again. Me turning him down was the best thing for him! Exactly one year later he met a really wonderful woman who loves him so much; they treat each other really well and both seem really happy (one of few happy marriages I have witnessed). If I said yes to his proposal neither one of us would have been happy.
I wrote my previous MyTake from a more bitter/frustrated point of view. Trying to understand everyone around me and their decisions, but I'm slowly realizing that I can't understand everyone and I have to be OK with that.
So to keep this MyTake short I'll just break this down into a few points:
Loving and respecting yourself is important...
But you should also love and respect everyone around you.
Standing up for what you want in life and what you believe in is also important...
But you have to be flexible and OK with things not always going the way you want them. For example, if one of my girlfriends that I spoke about above decided "I'm not going to marry someone I don't love" instead of marrying them based on fear ("what if I never have this chance again?"), then they have to be prepared and OK if they never meet someone who would want to marry them, because that is a possibility. Maybe you have other things going on in the world that are more important, like focusing on building a business, changing the world, adopting a child, etc?
Maybe settling is OK too?
If Marrying and starting a Family is engraved in your agenda, and you haven't yet found someone good enough to marry, then maybe the choices my friends have made are not so bad. Anyway, not all marriages that started based on love last forever. It's hard to tell, it's hard to say.
Everyone always says you have to "love yourself first" but that isn't always the case.
And you might just learn to love the person you "settled" for...
Note: I'm not saying that ALL marriages are between people who settled. This article is not about those people.
Additional note: Don't start writing hate comments to each other. Everyone is entitled to their own interpretation of a MyTake as well as their own opinions. Discussions should be to help each other see point of views and understand in different ways, not to hate on each other.
Peace out y'all
~Aamina
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I really like the stuff you write, Aamina. :) You are really smart about relationships.
I might not say that you have to "love yourself first." I might put a bit of a different twist on it and say you have to "be the best version of yourself you can be." This means understanding your values and needs, and putting yourself on a track to live the values while obtaining the things you need. This includes looking the way you want, dressing the way you want, knowing what you want in terms of family and life, and getting the career you want.
Once you feel comfortable that you are on that track - and I am not - I want to believe self-love would be a natural consequence. Sort of like the Wizard of Oz, where the Tin Man earns his heart by proving he already has it, you look at yourself and feel pride. Then and only then are you really ready to find the best person available for you.
But this is an untested theory. I would be curious to know what more mature people think.
All the best 😀