Happiness depends on me

Taking a break from "baby talk" ....

A friend of mine sent me this article a few weeks ago, called The Case for Settling for Mr Good Enough and asked me what I thought. It's a very long article, but the basic idea seems to be, in order to be happy, women should settle and marry Mr. Good Enough once they hit a certain age instead of staying single and waiting for Mr. Perfect.

I was surprised that the article actually made me think a lot... Perhaps I have too much time on my hand. My take is the article actually misses the point all together. I think happiness in relationships and marriage starts with you and not as much the mate you choose. I like to think this because it gives us women more power in the matter of our happiness. If we want the happiness we see others have in marriage, we must start from within with Self-Awareness, Confidence, and Openness.

Self Awareness
First, it take some self awareness to realize that there is no Mr. Perfect. Trying to find Mr. Perfect is only a losing battle. I only learned this myself in my 30s as I looked for Mr. Perfect in all of my 20s and never found any. I was very quick to start seeing the flaw in others with every guy I dated. Not a fun or rewarding experience. Not surprisingly, everyone I met had flaws. In my 30s, I realized however, if I for some reason, found Mr. Perfect, what is to say he will think I am Ms. Perfect?. Also, what can I contribute to the relationship if he is already perfect. That's when I changed my thinking and started looking for someone I can compliment.

Another part of self awareness is knowing what you must have in a relationship to be happy and what you can give up. This, to me, is NOT the same as settling, but more like self-understanding. There are probably AT MOST 10-15 attributes we need to be happy with our mate. Do you know what yours are? Can you distinguish that from that 50 other things that you may also want but can probably live without?

Lastly i find self awareness helpful to keep me realistic about who I can attract and can be attracted to me. I know a friend today who is probably a "7" but would only want to date men who are "9," but not too surprisingly none of those men want to date her. While this seems harsh, it also seems to be reality. Not everyone lives in it though. Unfortunately there is no easy way to tell a friend this even if you have the best intentions. The journey to self awareness needs to be self-initiated

Confidence
Another important factor to happiness is confidence. Let's say you know the 10 things you need in a mate to be happy and you know you are realistic about the type of men you can attract. As you get older, will you start waiving on what you need? I read a book from the eHarmony founder once that said if you only get 9 out of 10 of what you really need in a mate, then you could still be unhappy for the rest of your life in that marriage because you and your mate will always fight about that one thing.

Perhaps some people are ok with that, but I would call that settling. It takes a certain confidence to stick to what you need and to believe that you deserve to marry someone who have all 10 attributes of what you need. I am not talking perfection here. One of the ten things could be "we both want children" or "we both have similar level sex drive". On the other hand, "he has to be a good cook" is probably not one of the ten attributes that anyone needs to be happy. It may be what you want, but knowing the difference is self awareness and marrying someone only when you found everything you need takes confidence.

Openness
Last, but not the least is openness. Finding a good mate requires us to be open minded about what form they may come in. I used to know a woman who says I must marry someone who is smart and then turns around and actually only dates men who has a MBA from the top 20 schools. Then she complains that there are no good men out there. I find that tragic that she is missing out on so many smart men who may have not chosen to get a MBA or any graduate degrees. Heck, many CEOs today never finished college or go to a top tier college. By narrowing the criteria so tightly, this woman is only doing herself a disservice and probably missing out on chances to meet a good mate.

Similarly I hear about friends who only want to date someone successful and then if they are online, set the criteria at $100K in annual income. How arbitrary is that... and then of course, there are also those that says I can't do the online thing. Well, why the heck not? It can only increase your chances. Sometimes we seem to focus so much on saying that there are no good men out there for us as an excuse for our unhappiness, when in fact many times, we have limited our focus so much that it is us who is responsible for not finding that special someone and not so much that they are not out there.

Openness also mean being able to open up and be vulnerable once there is some potential in your dates. As we get older, I think we build a lot more walls around us. It is the same for men and women and frankly if you are waiting for the men to open up first, you may be waiting a long time. They do mature slower you know and someone has to lead the way and take a risk. Only when you take risks with your vulnerability in your emotion can you elicit possible openness.

At the end of the day, I believe it's our action and changes from within that can affect our own happiness with our current or future mate... There are many people out there doing the same thing over and over again and dating the same kind of men and then complain that life sucks. Well, change something within could help much more because doing the same thing over and over again expecting different result is the definition of insanity. We are not insane but I think it is just easier to blame others for our unhappiness.

Well, I believe we have the power to create our own happiness by changing our own perspective and action in life. There is no need to settle and get married when you reach a certain age. Marriage does not equate to happiness anyways since more than 50% of marriage fail in the US. Why settle and get those odds? With self-awareness, confidence, and openness, couldn't we all find Mr. Right eventually?

I know I found mine. He may not have come when I was 28 as I planned and is far from perfect, but I know we make each other better people when we are together and I know I can grow in life with him. I am an optimist I guess and believe everyone can find their right match if they just focused more energy on growing from within and changing themselves and their perspectives first.

- Lei