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IN ORDER TO FIND a love for life, you’ll
need to know what your strongest interest is. What really interests
you? What do you love to talk about, read about, do, have, play
with? If you don’t know the answer to those questions, or
if the answers are a bunch of minor interests rather than one
major interest, forget about finding a mate until you know what
your “passion” is. But once you know that, finding
a mate is easy: Pursue your interest and see who shows up.
Let’s say you love sailing. If you
want to find someone you’ll love to talk to, you’ll
need to find someone as interested in sailing as you are. Otherwise,
although the two of you may have a functional relationship, you’ll
be living in different worlds. Our deepest purposes and interests
are at the heart of who we are.
So join a sailing club, go to sailing classes
and races. Pursue your interest. The people you meet in a sailing
club are much more likely to be interested in sailing than the
people you’d meet in a bar, for example.
The rush of hormones at the beginning of
a relationship wears off. Sorry to say it, but it’s true.
No matter how attractive someone may be, that initial intense
rush eventually dies down. But that’s okay, because there’s
a deeper, more satisfying kind of love and attraction: the respect
and affection between two people who share a common purpose or
interest.
Raising children ends up being the common
purpose between many married couples. But if child-raising doesn’t
intensely interest both of you, it isn’t a good enough purpose
to create and maintain the longtime happiness of a lifemate.
Two things need to be said. First, you’ll
never find the “perfect” mate. She or he may seem
perfect for a while, but no one can meet every one of your ideals.
In fact, some of your ideals are probably mutually exclusive,
so meeting all of them is literally impossible. You’ll eventually
find faults in anyone because everyone has faults. When you find
faults with your mate, remind yourself of that. Quit imagining
that there is a perfect person out there somewhere. There isn’t.
Second, even when you’ve found your
lifemate, you’ll sometimes be attracted to others.
It’s human. It doesn’t mean anything except that you
are a biological machine, built to breed. The human species (and
every other species on the planet) has a built-in urge to multiply.
Stick with your mate and don’t let it be important that
others attract you. Your response to yourself can simply be “So
what if I’m attracted to someone? It doesn’t mean anything.”
Stay true to your mate even when an occasional attraction inclines
you temporarily to do otherwise. You’ll be happier and healthier
as a result.
You want to find a lifemate? Take up your
strongest interest with enthusiasm and see who shows up. After
you find the person you’re looking for and the rush of hormones
has worn off, accept the fact that your mate isn’t perfect,
that nobody is perfect, and remind yourself that it isn’t
important that you are occasionally attracted to others. Do this
and you can live (pretty darn) happily ever after.
Pursue your interest and remind
yourself:
Nobody’s perfect and attraction to others is unimportant. |
