Monday, December 2, 2013

The 12 Blogs of Christmas: What Determines Being In Love?

It's December, and as the calendar just so conveniently worked it in my favor, I'm on pace to post 12 blogs between now and New Year's Eve. So in a clever stroke of momentary geniusness, I've decided to call all of December's work "The 12 Blogs of Christmas". Some posts will have to do with the Christmas season, but they all will stick with the love & relationships theme. Hope these lessons help you in whatever season you're in right now...
Love (noun) - perfect time, perfect person, perfect place… 

We all know this is not the definition of love and some would argue that there really is no one way to describe the feeling, but this is the definition that I am giving love today. Love is not something that is easy to come by, and as Love's #1 fan, I strongly believe that you can’t help when, where, or with whom it happens. This is why I believe that when all three factors of when, where, and with whom align perfectly, it must be inevitable that you have found “the one”.

I consistently converse with people from all over the world about their long distance relationships, their sub-par long-term mates, their inconvenient relationships, etc. It seems unbelievable to me when I meet a few couples that has made it all work. Does true love force people into finding a way through those three aforementioned factors that are bound to end any love affair? If you are reading this and don’t know the answer to the question, have you just not found love in its truest form? It’s definitely a question worth pondering.

I was inspired to write this article because of how often I watch relationships fail due to the lack of perfect timing, the perfect person, or the perfect place. The number one and two reasons being perfect timing and perfect place — in that order. In this day in age, especially for young twenty and thirty-something’s, careers, societal demands, and opportunity make you live life at astronomical speeds as you race to find the next big promotion or life achievement. You're so busy living for the future that you may forget to take time to live in the moment. Even in my late 40's, I put love to the side because it’s not the perfect time, or things haven’t necessarily fallen into place yet. However, I'm challenging all of us to ask ourselves 1) will they ever really will fall in place the way we want? 2) will we continue to run a rat race that causes us to miss out on what is right in front of our faces?

What about the third reason of the perfect place? Far too often I see lovers in two completely different areas trying to make a long distance relationship work. It's always stated that love comes few and far between, so just because it may be far away, doesn’t mean we immediately write it off. However, what eventually happens is the distance causes a wedge, and it gives us an excuse to quit because we “aren’t in the same place”.

I don’t write this to say I have all the answers. I challenge everyone before we head into another year, to take a second to stop and think about whether one or more of these three factors (the alignment of where you fall in love, when you fall in love, and with whom you fall in love) have prohibited you from pursuing love. I think those lucky people who have accomplished it have found harmony in the three, and because of that, I’m giving love this new definition today...

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