Your Best Relationship Should Be With Yourself.

 Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

May Sarton

So, you want to be in a relationship, yet can’t seem to find the right person. Or you are in a relationship already and wonder why you can’t find happiness with the person you are with. The answer to both situations is the same; you haven’t made yourself a priority, you aren’t happy with yourself. If you can’t be happy with yourself, you can’t be happy with anyone, and nobody will be happy with you.

Unfortunately we live in a society that emphasizes the need to be with someone, anyone, as a defining feature. This is so critical that being alone is shames and viewed as a sign that something is wrong.

You know what? Way too many people desperately look to be in a relationship, if for nothing else, to have someone to blame about their lives. THAT’S WRONG. You first need to love yourself and be content with yourself. Only then can you properly offer who you are to anyone. Relationships shouldn’t be about completing or worst yet competing. It should be about complementing.

And if you need the other person to complete you, or to support you because you can’t do it alone, you don’t become a partner, you become an anchor. If you can’t bring yourself happiness, how can you expect to make anyone happy? That’s the paradox, to be with anyone, you have to learn to be alone first. You can’t make anyone happy if you can’t make yourself happy first.

I’m a Gentleman, Not a Saint.

I prefer a pleasant vice to an annoying virtue.

Moliere

I am a Gentleman; and yet I have the occasional drink, smoke the occasional cigar, say the occasional curse word, and do the occasional wrong thing every once in a while. Because even though I am a Gentleman, I am also human. And that is something I have learned to accept, from myself and from others. Nobody is perfect and nobody should be expected to be.

The biggest misconception holding back many men from becoming better men is the idea that they are not good enough, so why even try. They judge themselves based on past actions or past mistakes. The best example of this mentality is men who think they can’t be a good mentor simply because of the life they have led. How can they set a good example if they can be called out on all the bad things they have done in life?

They assume that good men are these perfect beings who walk on a different level of consciousness. The reality is that a good man is imperfect, and gets the same imperfect thoughts everyone else does. What sets them apart is how, with the same thoughts and temptations, are still willing to do good. The only thing needed to be a good man is the clear intention of being a good man. That’s where being a Gentleman comes in.

Many Eastern philosophies make a distinction between the Sage and the Gentleman. The sage is the equivalent of the saint, a man who walks on a higher level of consciousness. Yet these philosophies understand that not all men can or even should aim to become a sage, as some men’s obligations as a Warrior or as a Leader will force them to walk a different path than the Sage.

The simple fact that you are willing to do good, to step in that general direction, places you above and beyond those who do nothing other than judge. Change is not achieved through judgment, but rather through action. The fact that you are not perfect and the fact that you accept it gives you an insight as to why people fall from grace. And by understanding why people take the actions they do, can you better help them or at least deal with them. The men who best understand the importance of virtue are usually those with personal knowledge of vice at one point in their lives.

People Can Make You Happy But Only You Can Achieve Happiness

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

Agnes Repplier

Trying to find ‘Happiness’ is like a single person trying to find a ‘Relationship,’ the harder you try, the harder it is to find. People tend to confuse happiness and being happy. Happiness is being content with your life; it’s achieving harmony between all aspects of your life. Happy is just being happy. Someone can make you happy, but only you can achieve happiness.

And I emphasis on the term Achieve and Find, because happiness is not something that happens, like when you finally get a joke and start laughing. You have to work on yourself to find happiness. You must understand yourself enough to realize what is out of whack, what is stopping you from reaching harmony.

We place our happiness in the hands of others, expecting them to cater to us, to bring us happiness as if it where little more than a sandwich or a drink. The only thing anyone can do is make you happy, bring a temporary smile, a quick laugh. But that is purely temporary. If anything, you are setting yourself up for a codependent relationship and guaranteeing you will never achieve happiness, and you hand over control of your life to another person.

Look at yourself, understand yourself, and evolve yourself. Find your happiness and achieve it. Understand that happiness is not based on who you are with, but who you are.