Hello Loves!
Today I am extra excited about the upcoming events. Why, you might ask? Well in a few weeks I'll be turning the BIG 2-5. Now for some, this day may be bittersweet. It may represent an end to your youth or the beginning of a new journey. I think it all depends on where you are in your life. Are you satisfied with your choices and have you learned from the mistakes of your youth? Are you headed in the right direction to meet your goals? Have you met them already? Do you even have any?? If you would’ve asked me a year ago how I thought I would feel about turning 25 I probably would've started crying uncontrollably! LOL Needless to say, I wasn't headed in the right direction to meet my goals. To fully understand how I came to feel the way I feel now about turning 25, I have to tell you a little bit about who I was then.
I graduated from college about 3 years ago (December 2007 to be exact) at the very start of The Great Recession, according to economist. Almost as soon as I walked across the stage I landed my first job. I told myself when I got the job that I would continue looking for work more closely related to my field, something that made me happy. However, after four months of looking for a job with no results I slowly became more comfortable at my job. I pushed my dreams aside because the news, friends, and the WORLD told me that I was lucky to even be working during these times. For a while I was working off the high of having a have a job straight out of college and having a steady income...I felt secure. But after a while I became resentful about the work I had to do and the time it was consuming.
Ironically, just two months away from my third year at my job I got the dreaded call to the back office. I was being let go! The first person I called was my mom. After my rant of confusion, anger, shock, and a whole lot of inaudible sobbing, my mom said to me, "Elise, this may be a blessing...you said you weren't doing what you really wanted to do, now you have your chance." Ahhh, isn't a mother's wisdom golden?
She was right. I had spent the last three years of my life running on a treadmill. Granted I did gain valuable experience and met wonderful people but being let go was not a bad thing. That part of my life was over. The lessons that were there for me were learned and it was time for me to move on; Time for me to pursue what I really wanted. Now I really haven't been happier since college. I haven't found my dream job yet but I'm making the steps toward it and I won't make the mistake again of letting the comfort of security hold me back from being happy with what I really want.
After giving it more thought I realized that you should apply this mindset to every aspect of life. Even love. Don't settle for less than what you really want just because it's the "safe" or "secure" thing to do. I know that is easier said than done, but really when you do that, in the end you just wind up resentful. To be honest, the dating scene in Atlanta is dismal. I have a wonderful boyfriend of nearly 4 years now but many of my closest friends are single and I see the challenges they are up against. The ratio of men to women is egregious and of those available men…let just say a girl is gonna have to do her fair share of frog kissing to find her prince. It’s not uncommon for a single woman in her late 20s to 30s to hear another woman (be it her friend, mother, aunt, sister, grocery store clerk, etc.) tell her that her standards are too high and that’s why she is still single. “Lower your standards,” they say. Really? Is that what we must do now in order to find happiness in love…lower our standards??
Susan Page, author of “If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single?”addresses this very issue brilliantly. She states:
"Actually, lowering your standards is impossible to do anyway. Your ideals and fantasies are what they are. It is not possible to alter them by an act of will, to simply wake up one day and say, 'Well I changed my mind. Now I don’t care whether the person I date is communicative.' It’s like asking a leopard to change its spots. You may tell yourself you have lowered your standards, but the real ones are always there – lurking somewhere in the background. "
All in all, there is no such thing in lowering your standards. But instead, what we should do is take the time to find out what our high standards really are. There’s an experiment in the book that I want to share with you all and encourage you to do.
A. On paper, describe your ideal mate. List all every little quality you’d like them to have. Take your time and include EVERYTHING. There is no need to be realistic or censor yourself.
B. Go back over your list and place either an “E” for essential or “D” for desirable next to each item.
C. List all “E” qualities on a separate page in order of their importance to you.
D. Draw a line under the top 5 items on the “E” list.
These are your standards. These are the things you must not compromise. They are what is important to you and will not change. If you get a chance share them with the rest of the Alls Fair in Love followers. I’ll share mine too!
Until next time…remember high standards or not, Alls Fair In Love!
Xoxo
Elise Alls
allsfairnlove@gmail.com
Responding...I know you dred..."Why does she keep showing up in my posts?"
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I once wrote that we should lower our standards, but you are right, maybe that was incorrect to what I was actually thinking. Exactly what are our standards? Why not compromise, would this be considered lowering "standards?" We have to graduate from the thoughts that someone is going to meet our every need, because they have needs too. When you look at it it all becomes this big list of needs everyone is looking for, so the idea to sit and write them out...we aren't even sure what they all are. We know when we see and feel inside what we want to trust from someone, and the idea is to be ready and willing to let go of the material and work with the commons. In other words, work with what you have, but try and cover so many of the complaints that women have in their relationships now. If you find that your man is selfish...he is bound to be that way for life, no matter the compromise you try to initiate. If you find that your man is giving, but all you do is take, then you may not be the best partner for him either. So, what do you do? You try and find where you both are willing to work with each other, not on faults, but on compromise. I'd wouldn't mind having a selfish guy, if I knew that he was only selfish when it came to giving me the world, and I the same.
Hold up did I say that right...I meant if it was confusing.
ReplyDeleteIf his selfishness is to the world and not to me, then I am willing.
Yeah...that is what I meant.
LOL! Angie your comments are always welcomed...and interesting! I think you're def right. Being able to compromise is very important. How you know what to compromise on is by finding out the difference between what you want and what you need in a relationship. Many times its hard to tell the difference. That's why I think the list is voluble when you take your time to really do it. But even after all that...sometimes you still end up falling for someone who possess something that wasn't even on your list or even crossed your mind. But what he or she had was just what you were looking for the whole time. That's why it's important to 1) know what is a priority to you, and 2) still be open to exploring relationships with ppl who you might not have normally considered.
ReplyDelete