It’s Time to Stop Chasing Love

For so many years of my life I looked for love in other people. I would crush on a new person every other day at the slightest hint of kindness. I thought that my very reason for being was to find this magical and mysterious thing we call love.

My mind was distracted during school because instead of listening and paying attention, I’d daydream. I gave my attention away so easily, failing to realize that by not being present, I was missing out on key aspects of my life.

I would think about how and when I’d get to see whoever again, excited for a moment that I had idealized in my mind that maybe wouldn’t even go according to plan the majority of the time. I thought that if these daydreams became reality, I would finally be happy.

But, unfortunately, daydreams aren’t reality and they cloud your mind. Sometimes your mind is so foggy that, when it finally arrives, you’re disillusioned into believing the moment is as great as you imagined it to be when it’s not. Sometimes your rose colored glasses dissuade you into thinking that a crush is love, and you believe that you’re happy when you’re truly miserable.

And as a female, I grew up believing that my ultimate goal in life was to find my perfect man and start a family with him. Instead of developing my mind with academics and working towards tangible goals to improve myself as a person, I felt insecurities about my weight and appearance constantly.

I thought that the only way to live a happy life was to find someone who loved me, but I thought they’d only do so if I was as physically beautiful as possible. I saw that certain girls, especially those who fit into traditional standards of beauty, received more attention from guys and felt a sense of competition. So, from this, I thought I needed to also mimic this same standard of beauty. I think maybe, in a way, we were all competiting for this idealized future with our “prince charming” or “soul mate” or whatever all along.

But, I’ve come to realize that by prioritizing the goal of finding the “love of your life,” you must give up on many other important aspects of life along the way. The time we spend thinking or talking about a crush is time we could have spent reading a book, developing a stronger relationship with a friend, or mastering a skill. The life we spend idealizing love takes up far more time than it truly deserves.

I am tired of looking for love externally because as much as I’ve searched for it, I’ve still yet to find anything worth the effort or time. Now’s the time to focus inwards and find love within myself. Because until I find this within my own heart, I will never be able to give it to another person the way they deserve to be loved. Until I understand what self love means, I’ll never understand what true love from another person means. And until I value myself as much as I’ve valued all those crushes I’ve had over the course of my life, I will never fully understand the fact that it’s not necessary to be loved by another person to feel happy. It’s not necessary to find a soulmate, but it is necessary to find myself.