A lot of us have been raised to believe that the right person will complete us. We’ve been told to put ourselves out there, wear our hearts on our sleeves, and take risk in finding a long-lasting romantic relationship. The world convinces us that we can have everything that we want in life, but if we don’t have one person who loves us tenderly and passionately, something will always be missing.
And so we spend a significant amount of our time searching for the right one. We look at the stars at night and hope that someone will swoop into our lives and fill that hole sitting in our hearts. Some mornings we wake up hoping we’ll come across someone who will finally love us back.
Every day, we are reminded that true happiness can be achieved by sharing our lives with another person. We hear it in pop songs on our way to work. We see it on TV commercials when we’re eating our meals. We read so much of it on social media that it seems impossible to avoid it anymore.
Without admitting it, sometimes we enter relationships because we feel like we need to. We need to find the right person for us to survive. We need to have someone validate us. We need to be loved in return so we can be genuinely happy.
But is this really the right way to live?
Are we truly better as human beings if we have the right one beside us?
Do we need someone else to make us feel complete?
When you look at yourself in the mirror and stare deeply into your eyes, you will see that you are already a whole person. That you are already loved. And you can survive this whole journey with your own strength.
You can go around the world searching for your one true love. You can meet different people and have them love you and break your heart. You can try to find someone who’s going to be the mirror of your soul. But in the end, you will realize that the love you want already exists inside of you.
You are the person you’ve been searching for after all this time.
Your love for yourself is enough.
You are already the hero in this story.
And it takes time to learn that the love you have for yourself is the most important love you can ever achieve in this world.
It takes a lot of heartache and failure and sadness to discover your immense capabilities in healing yourself, believing in yourself, and relying on yourself.
The idea that the right person will bring more color in your life isn’t entirely true. You alone have the power to make your story as great and amazing as you want it to be. You can be your own cheerleader when you suddenly feel lonely in the middle of the night. You can inspire yourself to reach your goals. And you can live your life without depending on other people for your self-worth.
There is beauty in knowing that you don’t have to wait for someone to be part of your life before it can begin. Your life is already moving right at this second, and it will keep flourishing regardless if you have a significant other or not.
Spending your time searching for the right person won’t automatically fix what’s missing in your life. Because the truth is, the only one who can really complete you is you. And recognizing that is the first step to achieving a fulfilling life.
