Love is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful emotions one can experience. It can literally and figuratively rock your world, if you are really lucky. And it can make your world pretty rocky, if you are being stupid. Why then, am I making such a strange request, that you delay falling in love! Because, love alone isn’t enough. It is not everything. But most people don’t realize this until much later. And because it is very easy to mistake every other emotion in the world for love, when one is specifically looking to be in love.
Let me first tell you all the things (I learned all these years) that love is NOT:
Love at first sight is not love.
Fatal attraction is not love.
Mere attraction is not love.
Casual sex will not covert to love.
Hook ups and flings are not love.
Crushes are definitely not love.
One sided love is also not love.
Spur of the moment – so NOT love.
The love that you see in movies – DEFINITELY NOT LOVE.
Love is what happens after all this is done. Love is that which exists in spite of all this. There is more to love than just mushy mushy, kuchikoo romance and dating. To be able to see that, you have to delay falling in love.
As a Motivational Speaker and Blogger, I daily address at least a dozen relationship questions (especially emails) for my audiences, especially the younger ones. And when I tell them to slow down a bit, people often misconstrue. I am not asking anyone to not date, go out or meet more people they think they would like. My sole intention is that you do it right. And I am not attaching any moral compass to this word ‘right’ and trying to ‘steer’ you in some socially acceptable direction. I simply urge people to be logical at the face of the immense irrationality called ‘love’ which everyone falls prey to. 🙂
I am a strong believer of ‘slow is better than fast’. And that’s why, these are my 4 reasons why you should delay falling in love too:
You may not be ready for the full time job
Relationships are a lot of work. It is a full time job, if you want to be nearly good at it. If you have been worrying about a CAT score or IIT JEE rank or CA finals or any other career exam, while at the same time worrying about your relationship – ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ 🙂
Any good thing, any damn worthy thing in life – comes with a demand of unwavering focus. And if you diffuse a relationship into this equation without being reasonably certain about the future of it, you are just messing with your life and the focus it demands from you.
The most fool proof way to be certain whether a relationship is good for you or not is to know yourself well before jumping to know someone else fully. Because first and foremost it is about understanding what you are looking for, before getting impressed by what someone has to offer. This level of surety comes from your emotional competency, your experiences, and your exposure in life. Live well, travel more and get to know yourself better.
So, ladies- at 21, you should have grade problems, not guy problems! 🙂 … So check. Are you qualified for this job yet?
Easy Impression = Easy Depression
It is very important that you start right. If you are falling in love because you enjoyed a one night stand and want more, or because the guy / girl is very caring and seems to make you the center of his / her world, or if they are like your McDreamy (or sapno ki raani) and it feels like you could do anything to just be with them because they are so impressive – STOP right there.
Care can become irritating after a while if there is stagnation in life or no understanding of space. Good looks always fade. Cool gadgets and vehicles are stuff that boys and girls get attracted to. And don’t even get me started on one nighters and casual sex as the basis of relationships.
(Image Courtesy: Pinterest)
To be able to differentiate solid substance in people from all this ‘shosha’ (show off), you need to be sorted and settled in your mind. If you are getting easily impressed by small, immaterial stuff and your overwhelming quotient is high – you might just keep making the wrong choices because you probably lack the mental ability to sort through all the faff and chaff. You will keep getting attracted to the things that everyone gets attracted to but are not righteous for you.
The most sexy thing in the opposite gender is not the curves or the packs. It is their beautiful minds & sorted heads. They are the people who will not be very obviously visible in the crowd. They are so cleverly disguised that it is v difficult to figure them out. They are people with simpler emotions. They are people who you’d love to listen to & talk to for hours (Sexy minds). They are the people – ‘You just can’t help but fall in love with’.
Big Bazaar of Relationships
Between the ages 15 to 30, most people give in to their somersaulting and rock dancing hormones and fall into this trap. You have a choice – either you follow the law of averages and you become an average person yourself, or you become someone extra-ordinary, someone very different.
Relationships available readily in abundance
There is a big bazaar of relationships out there with a perennial sale. Don’t go buying into those easily and readily available relationships just because your friends / colleagues / cousins have found love (apparently). And in those sales, it is so easy to confuse other things for love. Love ka kya hai! 15 days of constant company with little bit of care can make you think you have fallen in love. And then – ‘Channa Mereya’ !! I have been married for almost 13 years now. And it takes much more than that to really know a person. 15 days are just not enough. Nor is one year.
You want pampering, go to a salon. Not into someone’s arms. These 15 years of your life and what you do with them will determine the quality of your life after 30. Be on the lookout for exponential happiness. Marginal utility (happiness) is an inverted U curve! And if you need to wait a while for that exponential curve to take shape, isn’t it worth your time? And while you are at it, here’s how you can choose the right partner.
Relationships won’t fix your life
Have you ever wondered why people in hostels fall in love so easily and quickly? 99% of the times, they are just looking to fill some space in life, some need that has been nagging for long. Proximity plays an important role. In those 2-4 years you can either fill yourself with the chase for your skills, knowledge, goals or you can fill it with half hearted, zero sorted relationships. The choice is yours to make and the consequences are yours to face. It requires a lot of depth in personality to manage both – pyaar and padhayi.
(Image courtesy: Clipartrix)
When a person moves from one relationship to next, they look for something they didn’t have before (loyalty, care, pampering etc.). It might not always be something they really need. Don’t let yourself become a motley of confused needs which you gather over hurried, wrong relationships.
How to stop falling in love so frequently then?
The easiest fix that I find is – look at what everyone else is doing, observe them closely. And then just do the opposite! Because if you keep doing what everyone is doing, you get what everyone else gets. If you keep following the herd, you will never be SEEN or HEARD.
Your wait will help you avoid the ennui, the boredom and the useless extra baggage of your previous useless relationships. Your wait will help you realize the 5 most important things any relationship needs – safety and comfort, richness of content in the relationship, freedom and equality, etc.
Remember – A masterpiece takes time.
(Image courtesy: Pinterest)
For everything I have written above, there are exceptions – people with immense depth in personality, vision and clarity. They can make space for career and love in life. Every one cannot hope to be a Mark Zuckerbrg and further hope for an awesome two-some : picture perfect both -Facebook & Romance book. The Zukerberg genre is a minority. I address the majority – average people like me and you – who can’t have it all! Besides, no successful man ever dreamed of finding the right life partner while simultaneously nurturing their burning desire to be someone with a legacy to leave behind.
You want an exceptional mid-life and post mid-life, you try and become boring today and invest in your abilities and skills doggedly. And then you see the exponential growth spurt in you.
Till then – “Intezaar… Intezaar …” 🙂 It will be very worth it. I promise. I swear. I guarantee 🙂
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