4 Life Lessons on Finding Love I wish I could Tell My 26 year old self

I remember her very well.

She was sitting by the window, wearing her green dress and waiting for her best friend to click a photo for the matrimony site. Her eyes were filled with hope, excitement and the dreaminess of getting to meet her future husband soon. Nothing would complete her life like adding a “Mrs” prefix to her name.

Four years later at 30, after a lot of lessons, heartbreaks and memories she would not still find the “love”. Instead she would question the very definition of it and the image of a good life she was holding so far.

I am that girl.

Here are 5 life Lessons I learnt in the four years in between, I wish I could tell my 26 year old self.

Could I have saved her heartbreaks? Nope.

Maybe she could have lowered resistance to life and accepted it?

Here they are:

1. Go Out And Meet People

Just put yourself out there.

I know you are holding on to the horoscopes about the perfect man of your dreams finding you. And that you do not have to wait for a single thing in your life. Nope.

Stop living in your head. Stop thinking that the boy you had a crush on will finally realise how precious you are (*spoilers ahead*). He wouldn’t give a damn.

Meet people because you love having conversations. Meet people because you don’t want to miss the heady feeling of flirting with someone you are attracted to. You will be laughed at, you will be told you are too much. But guess what, the ones meant to be in your life would be stand right there with you.

2. You will Break A Hundred Barriers - And You Should

I wish I could prepare you for this.

Revist your ideas of a “good woman” you have been told. To all the insecurities about your body that people had the “concern” to remind you - go back to them. Question all that you believe about love, about marriage, about finding love and what makes your life meaningful.

It’s not just marriage, it’s not just becoming a mother. Heck, it’s not a high flying career - We all are complete already!

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi

Fear makes us build resistances. Fear that people around us will question our character, hurt us and leave us once we show our vulnerability. Hard as it may sound, you need to face those fears.

You will meet your demons in every step you take forward. Meet them there, along the way you will define what a good life is for you.

Live that.

3. Learn To Not Take Rejection Personally

Ah, the skill I wish they taught in school aside from money management and doing taxes.

Learn to not place your value on how people perceive you. Know that their opinion is a reflection of them not you. Don’t try to find peace by seeking out closure with everyone you crossed paths with. Some people and their opinions are better left in the past.

Make sure you don’t start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don’t value you. Know your worth even if they don’t.

– Thema Davis

And do not give upon yourself because someone failed to see the way you wish they see you.

Forget, forgive and let go.

4. Fill Your Life With Love - All Forms Of It

The forever love you watch with teary eyes in rom-coms is romantic love. Just one kind. You can start seeing love expressed in a lot of things around you once you choose to let go of the ideas you are holding to.

Love takes many forms - the meditative effect of painting, the memories of happy family conversations, the joy seeing your puppy grow up. Go experience them all. Have a hobby and stick to it.

Dance your night away with your best friends. Cook that blueberry pancake and surprise them all. Read the novel in your favourite book shop and cry your heart out (to shocked reactions from other customers). And let your creativity find it‘s voice.

You get the picture. Go out there. And be your ray of sunshine.

For some of us, the destined “forever love” could be falling madly in love with your life, with people in it and you living your life with them.

Embrace it.

Final Thoughts

What you will learn in the four years is to let go of the grip on the standard timeline of study,get a job and get married. You will learn to set your own rules.

You will fight for approval, lose people, fight for love and take months to recover.

But through all this you will grow.

So here is what I want to tell you - Go explore the world without any expectation, break the barriers you have built over the years, accept people as they come and give love to all those things that gives you joy.

You will never find that love yet will realise you don’t need it to complete you.