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I have my passions, my hobbies and my creative outlets. All of these combined with my convictions, beliefs, and the choices I make based on my convictions and beliefs all make up my life style and personality. These things dictate who I am and how others will perceive me. If I don’t know these things about myself how can anyone know “me�? They can’t! That is then where the problem is.
You are constantly being misunderstood by everyone even yourself. Lets face it our basic need our and our biggest issue is for someone to get us, to understand. The question is how? How can we expect someone to get us if we don’t even understand ourselves? You see all kinds of movies about it. People write all kinds of books about it. There are Doctors for it and it is what you spend most of your twenties in search of.
Tell me how many times have you heard or used this line: “Its not you, it’s me, I just need some time and space to find myself.� And every time we hear it or say it we think to ourselves what a cop out. But in reality it is exactly what the issue is. We don’t know ourselves so how can we be responsible in a relationship or anything regarding another person if we don’t know ourselves? How can that other person make us happy or contribute to our well being and happiness if we don’t even know what will make us contented? The person we are with may not even be the one we need or would ever be able to provide us with what we need if we don’t know ourselves.
I am 30 years old and still I am not sure what I want, or who I am. Sometimes I amaze myself with some of the things I do or say. I find myself in situations I never would have imagined I would be capable of being in. I do things that I can’t even comprehend the intention behind. In short I baffle my own self. And there by sabotage any relationship I am in. I am sure if we all took a look at ourselves we would all agree that we do the same thing. So my question would be when we finally know ourselves enough would we be able to have a productive and meaningful relationship that can end in a blissful marriage. And yes I meant end. Because for the most part our relationships end in divorce, which is not as it was intended by God. We were meant to have a life partner. Someone to share the years with, to produce offspring with and to give meaning to each others lives.
Unfortunately that is not how it is. We are too quick to fall in love and get married. We seem to be on a mission from birth. Get everything done and completed by the time you hit 30. School, car, job, marriage, home, one boy, one girl and that is supposed to make us complete. If we aren’t in line with what is the acceptable norm then we are labeled the terminal bachelor or a spinster. Instead of taking the time to seek out our ambitions and dreams and find out what makes us happy, sad, content, complete we race into a relationship and then are left trying to find those answers for two people. Then what happens, one day when you have kids and after all these years you finally find that your partner is not what you wanted? That he/she is in no way compatible to whom or what you are. Now you are going to get a divorce there by damaging your children’s lives and continuing the cycle of broken relationships. Leaving your children with a skewed vision of what relationships are and how little we value ourselves.
What is left is a broken family that is most likely in therapy. With two single parents that go on marathon dates to try and find a mother/father for their children. And the children are trying to love both of their parents without making the other parent jealous or hurting their feelings. The children are forced into, for the most part, playing mediator between the parents. A lot of times the children view this all as their fault and think if they only behaved a little more and did what they were told more often that “Daddy wouldn’t have left Mommy� or vise versa. All too often the Children are the ones who suffer and are left broken and scarred.
Why do we do this, when all of this could have been avoided by simply “finding ourselves�?
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you bring up so many valid points
i read…nodded…smiled…teared…yes.not only did i live the situations you describe, but as a former special education teacher, i also saw the resulting injuries (mainly emotional) on the children.
now, here i am…nearing 50…and i’m only now beginning to walk the walk.
granted, in our current societal chaos manifests itself in different ways than 100 or 1000 years ago…but confusion, hatred, fear are nothing new. in “man’s” earliest history, pure survival was the name of the game. now, that is taken for granted…at least by those of us in “western” society. in its place, we have substituted mind games…will we survive emotionally?
sadly, no less deadly a game…with as many casualties. i wonder if we (humanity) will ever learn? at the end of the day, i guess all we can do is try our best to learn ourselves.
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A constant struggle
First, sorry that your quotes are showing up as funny chars, i’m working on that.Finding yourself is a constant struggle, I’ve realized. Every few years I need to have a little breakdown and rediscover who I’ve become, and what things about myself I want to focus on.
Relationships are a lot of work, and often people stay in them for the wrong reasons I fear. But finding the right person to spend forever with is one of those crazy-difficult problems, but it’s so rewarding we devote a lot of ourselves to it…
At the same time, I think many people thing a good relationship is ‘easy’, and that’s not at all the case. You always have to try to be attractive and interesting, and try to enjoy and be attracted to the other person. It’s fun, but there’s self-motivation involved – otherwise you slip into the apathetic ‘this sucks’ inerti that grips so many.
At least that’s what I think
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Be content with not finding the answers
The thing about life is that sometimes there are no answers. When you can accept and tolerate this fact, you will find true reality. It is only upon this reality that you can build your life and yourself, hence creating the happiness you desire. As for finding that someone special: you will know when you can care about someone and not want anything in return. That is what I know to be self-evident. I wish you goodwill. -
I don’t think you can ever know yourself, you can only be yourself. There’s definitely a difference.
The reason I think you can’t know yourself is that you’re constantly changing. You’re different at age 5 to age 10, and different at 20 to 25. How close does it get? Am I truly the same person I was yesterday? I don’t think I am, I think I’ve changed in small and indefinable ways.
It is, of course, the same for everyone, and that means that for a relationship to work you have to start out compatible and continue growing together. That’s hard, because life is very difficult to predict, and what makes me bitter might make someone else stronger. Personally I think it’s less destructive for all concerned if we simply accept that things change and move on when it’s necessary, rather than fighting ourselves all the time because we’re afraid to take charge of the change rather than just accept it.
Can a person truly be defined by language? Personally, I doubt it’s possible at all.
But that’s just what I think.
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Who knows
Sounds all to real for me. I am 31 and I met my husband at a young age. We have been together for almost 15 years. And I still to this day ask myself those same questions. I wouldnt change a thing. WE have had some very bad times and some wonderful times.
Jobob said right on the money if you want to be happy you have to work at it want it and make it happen. Its not easy believe me I know. I even wrote a poem about life. http://allpoetry.com/Poem/1431101read it I am sure it will make sence.
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I've Travelled This Path
I am not sure what age you are- but if you are young and figured this ou in your head, and not through experience- you are lucky lucky lucky, and also very smart. This is unfortunately the path many of us take, though often because there aren’t many other choices when we are young- or if there are it is too much to handle for many! Most people want a clear path through life even if it’s flawed. But anyway, I think at the end of this path what I discovered is that there is no you- the you you thought you were your entire life was an illusion. I say this because circumstances change, and if you stay the same person you are often then forced to choose between who you are, and your circumstances- and sometimes compromise isn’t a choice- it’s truly one or the other. Many people never have to experience this painful point. I did, and it made me realize that all of life and self is an illusion, based on whatever you choose to create. So you can either choose to be a person of convictions, beliefs, firm perceptions ect as you speak of, or you can let go of all of thos things, and be a person who is simply open to however life unfolds. Or you can be both- depending on your stage in life. I think blending both creates the genuine self, and I wish you the best in being that person, and contributing to the world, and getting every happiness you wih for out of life! -
Agreeing....but with something to add
I have to agree with what most of you have said. But I also have something else to add, something that I think adds to the failure potential of most relationships. It’s that most people don’t love with with true love. They love someone, maybe truly, sincerely love them. But they expect, and in some cases even demand it in return. They also seem to expect that the fact that love exists between themselves and the person they care for, that it automatically means they will be together and it will last. It leads back to that old cliche “Love is not enough”. I found, after my marriage ended, that a friend I’d had for years before meeting my ex-husband, was the man I’d truly been in love with. I eventually decided that I should tell him how I felt, and it turned out that he felt the same. Unfortunately, our lives have followed drastically different roads, and even though we could get together, and we want to, we both know that eventually, even our love would not be enough. The things that we want are just so different that we can’t mesh them (or at least we haven’t figured out yet how to. We’re actually still in that discussion stage where we can’t figure out what to do. It’s really putting a strain on our friendship.) Back to my original point, though, is that we love each other, but we want each other to be happy…even if it’s not with us. And that’s the thing that most people don’t understand and don’t seem to think of as being a reasonable, valid feeling. I would rather know he was happy with someone else than miserable with me.
I don’t know if what I said made any sense here, but I know it did in my head. =) -
hu?
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Little Feather
Aug 6 6:49 PM 2005
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