You are responsible for your own love and happiness
I sometimes wonder if there are so many lonely people in the world, why don't they all get together? Why are we crying in our own rooms instead of laughing together? Why do we spend our lives longing and striving instead of truly enjoying love-filled relationships?
Is it so hard to meet someone?
I don’t know.
Are we afraid to let others come too close?
It is as if we want to swim, but don’t want to get wet.
From the outside it looks to me as if we are robbing ourselves. We deny ourselves the most beautiful thing that can be – love. Having someone by your side. Feeling complete.
Why?
Probably because at one time or another you have been terribly hurt.
And now this memory from the past keeps circling in your brain, keeping you from daring to start all over again.
It is curious that, statistically, the odds are in favour of men. There are more single women out there, so men ought to be able to pick and choose. But in my experience men are just as lonely as women, perhaps even more desperate.
It is amazing to me that people who can operate technologically complicated machinery, manage projects and capital, or study history and philosophy, are suddenly at a loss when faced with how to help themselves be happier.
It makes me so sad to see a 30-year-old in a panic because she has never been married, or hear a 40-year-old say, “What more can a divorcee like me expect from life?”
Then I feel like yelling: Wake up!!! This is your life! Whose responsibility is it to jump up and help you become happy?
Actually I think it is a question of responsibility in general.
I think people often contrive to put responsibility for their own lives on just about anyone else in order to avoid taking on responsibility for changing something, for putting things in order.
Our parents raised us badly, our exes were dishonest, our children are at fault, it’s the crisis, it’s the government – see, we have to move abroad to find jobs! Or there simply isn’t enough money…
Time passes, and people become more sullen and dissatisfied, angry and aggressive. Society in general has become sick and is in moral crisis. Why? Because people are not willing to take responsibility for their own lives and their own happiness. And after a while they forget what happiness is.
It doesn’t matter if the issue is with your relationship, your job, your career, your money, or anything else for that matter. The responsibility for your life lies solely in your own hands.
Even as you read these words there are people falling in love, starting families, having children. So it seems that external factors like the economic crisis have nothing to do with your personal life.
There are people who are establishing businesses, starting new projects, and successfully earning money right now. This means it is possible.
So why can some people do it while others can’t?
Isn’t this also a question of responsibility?
Of course we can go out into the world to seek our fortunes like the Latvian folk tale hero Sprīdītis, or go in search of treasure like the shepherd in Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist, but these stories all end in the same way. After a life of learning lessons we discover that the real treasure is in each and every one of us, right here at home.
Happiness, love, friends and family.
I long to see happy people, loving families, a nation built on sustainable values, and a strong country led by wise people.
I am convinced that each of us can love and be loved. What do you think?
Love, Inese