Stop Looking

Stop looking for:

• True love, because there is no such thing. This is not heaven or any other place where all things are doused in perfection, and thinking that true love exists, or spending your entire life in search of it, not only sets unrealistic expectations for love, but also prohibits you from embracing the love you might already have in your life. Love is messy exactly because we are all messed up in one way or another, and this messiness is what makes love - and those who love - beautiful and free.
• The One. What makes a person a One is simply a basket of morals, values, principles, beliefs, and interests that fits well with our own, and thinking that among the billions of people on this planet there is only ONE person with a basket similar to yours is just as far from the truth as anyone from the one will ever be.
• Approval. You cannot please everybody, and going to extreme lengths to do so is like scattering the feathers of a pillow in the wind until it is but an empty case. If someone cannot appreciate the whole of you, hold on to knowing that there are many others who will. Get yourself a dog, parakeet, or a lizard if approval is of the utmost importance to you, but whatever you do, don’t go about handing out all your feathers until you have nothing left of you.
• Excuses. If you want to do something, do it; if you don’t want to do something, say so; if you have done something wrong, own up, (wo)man up, apologise, and move on.
• That one missing sock. Just like love, laughter, hope, and strength, missing socks also have a way of surprising you with their presence when you least expect it.

And even if that one sock remains elusive, life sometimes gives us new socks; and even if these new socks might not always be what we want, looking back, sometimes only years later, we realise they were exactly what we needed.