The pursuit of happiness (Part 2)

For those of you who follow my blog if you remember well this blog started with the article, "The pursuit of happiness" in which I thought my pursuit for happiness had finally ended.

For those of you who don't remember, this is the article I am talking about.
I have always believed that when God created human beings he made sure that each and every male will fit in perfectly with just one female and it is up to the male and female to find each other. In our lifetime we spend a lot of time searching for that special someone in our pursuit for happiness and if we are lucky we find him/her in the very first relationship that we embark on but in most cases we realise when we are already married that he/she is not that special someone meant for us. In which case we either stick to them out of mere concern for the kids or fear of the uprooting nature of divorce or we get the courage to break-up and start searching again. I also believe that when you find that special someone you experience pure bliss and you will know it deep in your heart and mind that he/she is the one, two hearts become one, two minds become one, two souls become one and two bodies become one. In other words the two of you will be compatible in all the real important issues of life so much that it seems like you are one person. And when you find that special someone you would have succeeded in your pursuit for happiness because you will be overwhelmed with love, peace and happiness. Many search for that special someone and die without finding him/her. For so many years I have been leading a very lonely life, waiting for my soulmate to find me and then realise that we are meant for each other. On the 26th of January 2007 my soulmate and I found each other and the intense love, profound joy & inner peace that is within me makes me speechless. My pursuit for happiness has successfully ended.

Well actually I was wrong, my pursuit for happiness continues. Sometimes life never turns out the way one wants it to as you learn that sometimes things are never what they seem.

"I'm done with you."
I thought I would never say that phrase, at least not to him but somewhere along the way I did. I won't go into detail as to what led me to say it, let me just say it was a culmination of events which built up and festered in my heart until I burst it out. Am still trying to figure out why true love is proving to be so elusive to me when love happens to be the thing I value most in life. So far I have come up with one theory which I think is the main reason why I am still single. Here is the theory.


I love myself so much and no one has ever loved me the way I want to be loved, which is as much as I love myself. My expectations of love always exceed the reality, in part because my expectations are both unconscious and ill-defined. I expect a person who loves me to measure up to my expectations of love which happen to be so great. I now wonder if to expect all those shows of love is to expect perfection from another, which is as disappointing and unrealistic as expecting perfection from myself. Perhaps the only person who loves me as I truly want to be loved is myself, if love is total affirmation and full acceptance of myself, warts and all, who better can I ask for such love than myself.


But then I need a man in my life to love me, comfort me, nurture me, support me, take care of my sexuality and be there for me when everyone else can't be there for me. Someone to confide in, someone on whose shoulders I can cry on when life gives me a heavy blow as it sometimes does, someone to walk with me through life's highway and hold my hand to stop me from stumbling and falling on rocky paths. Someone I can lean on and grow old with. My heart happens to be overflowing with love which is waiting to be unleashed to the right man for me so I don't only expect to receive love I am capable of giving the love I expect in its full measure.


I came to the conclusion that I will never find someone who loves me like I love myself because the only person who can do that is me and there is only one me in the whole wide world. So I have decided to relax my strict expectations from a man who falls in love with me. Maybe if I do that true love will prove not to be as elusive as it has been thus far in my life.
These are my new expectations from the man who loves me and whom I will pour my love on.
The man I choose is supposed to reflect the person I am so he should mirror my soul, should be like me, very loving and a hopeless romantic, huggy, philosophical, talkative and respectful of others and their views on life but most of all principled. Reality to me is more than what is visible to me, it is deeper than what I feel and see. That means, then, that a man is more than the sum of what I see and hear. In a sentence, I am an idealist. I look for the best in others; I am accepting of their shortcomings. (after all, I have some too, who doesn't have.)
The man should feel confident and comfortable with himself and not feel that he must prove himself to me. I want a man who is content and proud of who he is and always carries his head held high. I need a man who believes in love, peace, happiness and whose reality is neither confined to the material world nor influenced by fashionable trends. In the final analysis, we all come face to face with questions of our individual and corporate destiny. What shall become of us - individually and together, temporarily and spiritually - would depend on the choices we make in this life. As much as I would have no desire to hold the man to unrealistic standards of infallibility, I wish to be seen as an ordinary woman with flaws. The important thing to me is that we helpfully stick together always, and rise above the worst of experiences, despite ourselves. Does the above paint the picture of a soulless, serious, introverted woman? Far from it, I allow the ‘child’ in me to run free. I believe that life must be enjoyed to the hilt, albeit with responsibility and purpose.

Thanks to the amazing leverage of communication technologies, I have the whole world to choose from, can communicate with anyone anywhere in the world and communication is the cornerstone of all successful relationships.


If these new expectations don't lead me to the altar, then nothing will.
In the future look out on this blog for part three of the pursuit for happiness and find out what becomes of me.