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Perhaps the best advice any one can give would be the advice of finding your own voice to speak your own truth and find your own answers. Without these things, without knowing yourself and your heart's desires, how can you know the steps to take to achieve them? The things I've lived, the lessons I've learned, they are my own precious treasures and may mean nothing to you, but I share them anyhow, at the risk of looking like a fool. What I have to say may not be helpful, and would most definitely be hypocritical if offered as advice. No, I don't offer any advice, because in truth, I don't know anything. I'm just as lost as you. Instead, I offer some things I've learned while stumbling on my own path in this great conundrum called life.
There are two choices all of us have in any relationship. We choose either to let go of a little bit of ourselves and our desires and needs to be with the other person, or we choose to let go of a little bit of the other person and their desires and their needs to be closer to the person we want to be. It's a choice we make every day, and as the choices we make build up, it determines how close or far apart we are from the people we know and love.
In becoming who we are when we are young, we have to first let go of the person our parents want us to be. To grasp for our own desires, we have to let it be okay to give up their desires for us, the things they want us to become. Steadily, slowly, we become the people we want to be, as we step forward, closer to that image we idolize. Even then, every day is a sacrifice; every day we must wake up, willing to let go of who we are now in order to achieve who we might be later.
In life though, our choices don't just affect us, and we aren't the only ones making choices. Even as you choose to let go of yourself for the person you love - to be closer to them and who you can be with them - it could be that even then they are making the choice as well, to let go of you to become who they want to be. As you steadily walk towards them, they could be just as steadily walking away. It's hard to see this, when you are so actively shedding who you are to be with them. Situations like this usually end in a rude awakening, like sunlight pouring into an empty white room. It's probably why people say things like communication are so important. I think deep down people always want to know where they stand with other people, even if it's not the particular answer we want, at the very least, we do not want to be lost, guessing, confused. We can't make our own decisions when we are lost, we can't step forward if we don't know where we are first, because if we do, that step forward could very well be a step backward.
Choices are permanent and they snowball, and the scariest part in all of it is that even in our hesitation to choose, we have made a choice. We can choose to do and say nothing in fear, but even that is still a choice. We can never change any one who is unwilling, not even ourselves. If there is something you are not unwilling to give up, and it is that one essential thing you must give up in order to live happily with the person you love, then there is a truth that you must speak. It takes courage to find your voice, but choosing to use it is never a regretful thing. When you speak your truth, and make your choices, and find the courage to show yourself, you give others the knowledge and courage to be able to do the same in turn. When he tells you, "I like the way I am. I'm happy this way and I do not want to change." You are able to stop shedding who you are, to pause and decide whether you want to continue on your one way sacrifice. A relationship is not about martyrdom - you cannot save it on your own or through your own choices, no matter how much you want to.
Don't ever think you are above some one in life because you've made more prudent choices. You never know what advantages you've had that they haven't; moreover, we all have the potential to succumb to poor decisions in life, and, in fact, I might even go as far as saying that such things are inevitabilities. You will make a poor decision or a hurtful choice some day, and you will have to suffer the consequences for it, and when you do, you'll feel really sheepish for looking down on people who have made that same choice before you.
Taking the opportunity to tell some one you love them and truly mean it, that is never a bad thing, even if the urge comes twenty times a day. The other person may think you are overusing it or that you are insecure or that you are looking for them to tell you that they love you back, but really, there is nothing wrong with showing you care, even if it ends up misinterpreted. Sometimes you just have to use different methods if it really annoys the other person. Leave a note in their coffee mug in the morning, make a sandwich in the shape of a heart, randomly bring them a better lunch than what they packed one day, welcome them home with a hug. There are lots of good ways to say I love you, not all of them involve words. You never really know how long you have with any one in your life, don't avoid these moments of saying I love you and really meaning it. When they come, express yourself in any way you can. You won't regret it. Even if they don't say it back, that's not what love is about.
Sometimes, you have to walk away and love them from a distance. Loving some one doesn't automatically mean that a happy ending exists, it doesn't mean that they will love you back, and it doesn't mean that they will be in your life forever. When you love some one it simply means that even as you make those choices and sacrifices towards that one thing you want most, you accept them as they too make their choices and sacrifices towards that one thing they most desire. That is the ultimate sacrifice of love, that even if you feel like you need the other person, you love them and everything they are becoming, and you want them to grow into that one thing they desire, no matter what. You don't hold tightly, nor do you push them forward, you simply watch them in wonderment, as if they were a firework blooming like flowers in the night sky, it lights your eyes and warms your heart just to see them dance and shine out of your reach. Love is not predicated on anything other than the desire for the other person to find their own voice, their own truth, their own answers while hoping deep down somewhere along the way they find happiness, even if it isn't you that can provide it. That's not to say it's not love if you are selfish in the way you go about things, that could simply mean you are human and you are choosing not to sacrifice pieces of yourself to help the other become what they will. Or it could mean that the idea of loving and letting go is simply too painful for you. The firework display too bright, too beautiful, too far out of reach, you can’t stand to simply watch, so you walk away. So after you’ve found your voice, and your truth, know this: the question never really was, "Can I?" The question always was, "What am I willing to sacrifice?"
There are two choices all of us have in any relationship. We choose either to let go of a little bit of ourselves and our desires and needs to be with the other person, or we choose to let go of a little bit of the other person and their desires and their needs to be closer to the person we want to be. It's a choice we make every day, and as the choices we make build up, it determines how close or far apart we are from the people we know and love.
In becoming who we are when we are young, we have to first let go of the person our parents want us to be. To grasp for our own desires, we have to let it be okay to give up their desires for us, the things they want us to become. Steadily, slowly, we become the people we want to be, as we step forward, closer to that image we idolize. Even then, every day is a sacrifice; every day we must wake up, willing to let go of who we are now in order to achieve who we might be later.
In life though, our choices don't just affect us, and we aren't the only ones making choices. Even as you choose to let go of yourself for the person you love - to be closer to them and who you can be with them - it could be that even then they are making the choice as well, to let go of you to become who they want to be. As you steadily walk towards them, they could be just as steadily walking away. It's hard to see this, when you are so actively shedding who you are to be with them. Situations like this usually end in a rude awakening, like sunlight pouring into an empty white room. It's probably why people say things like communication are so important. I think deep down people always want to know where they stand with other people, even if it's not the particular answer we want, at the very least, we do not want to be lost, guessing, confused. We can't make our own decisions when we are lost, we can't step forward if we don't know where we are first, because if we do, that step forward could very well be a step backward.
Choices are permanent and they snowball, and the scariest part in all of it is that even in our hesitation to choose, we have made a choice. We can choose to do and say nothing in fear, but even that is still a choice. We can never change any one who is unwilling, not even ourselves. If there is something you are not unwilling to give up, and it is that one essential thing you must give up in order to live happily with the person you love, then there is a truth that you must speak. It takes courage to find your voice, but choosing to use it is never a regretful thing. When you speak your truth, and make your choices, and find the courage to show yourself, you give others the knowledge and courage to be able to do the same in turn. When he tells you, "I like the way I am. I'm happy this way and I do not want to change." You are able to stop shedding who you are, to pause and decide whether you want to continue on your one way sacrifice. A relationship is not about martyrdom - you cannot save it on your own or through your own choices, no matter how much you want to.
Don't ever think you are above some one in life because you've made more prudent choices. You never know what advantages you've had that they haven't; moreover, we all have the potential to succumb to poor decisions in life, and, in fact, I might even go as far as saying that such things are inevitabilities. You will make a poor decision or a hurtful choice some day, and you will have to suffer the consequences for it, and when you do, you'll feel really sheepish for looking down on people who have made that same choice before you.
Taking the opportunity to tell some one you love them and truly mean it, that is never a bad thing, even if the urge comes twenty times a day. The other person may think you are overusing it or that you are insecure or that you are looking for them to tell you that they love you back, but really, there is nothing wrong with showing you care, even if it ends up misinterpreted. Sometimes you just have to use different methods if it really annoys the other person. Leave a note in their coffee mug in the morning, make a sandwich in the shape of a heart, randomly bring them a better lunch than what they packed one day, welcome them home with a hug. There are lots of good ways to say I love you, not all of them involve words. You never really know how long you have with any one in your life, don't avoid these moments of saying I love you and really meaning it. When they come, express yourself in any way you can. You won't regret it. Even if they don't say it back, that's not what love is about.
Sometimes, you have to walk away and love them from a distance. Loving some one doesn't automatically mean that a happy ending exists, it doesn't mean that they will love you back, and it doesn't mean that they will be in your life forever. When you love some one it simply means that even as you make those choices and sacrifices towards that one thing you want most, you accept them as they too make their choices and sacrifices towards that one thing they most desire. That is the ultimate sacrifice of love, that even if you feel like you need the other person, you love them and everything they are becoming, and you want them to grow into that one thing they desire, no matter what. You don't hold tightly, nor do you push them forward, you simply watch them in wonderment, as if they were a firework blooming like flowers in the night sky, it lights your eyes and warms your heart just to see them dance and shine out of your reach. Love is not predicated on anything other than the desire for the other person to find their own voice, their own truth, their own answers while hoping deep down somewhere along the way they find happiness, even if it isn't you that can provide it. That's not to say it's not love if you are selfish in the way you go about things, that could simply mean you are human and you are choosing not to sacrifice pieces of yourself to help the other become what they will. Or it could mean that the idea of loving and letting go is simply too painful for you. The firework display too bright, too beautiful, too far out of reach, you can’t stand to simply watch, so you walk away. So after you’ve found your voice, and your truth, know this: the question never really was, "Can I?" The question always was, "What am I willing to sacrifice?"
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