UTAH TECH UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWS SOURCE | March 28, 2024

To Boldly Go: Sometimes flying solo makes for better trip

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In order to be happy in a relationship, one must first be happy alone.

Those who think that respect is dependent upon being desirable to someone else would do well to learn that the happiest individuals are the ones who are respected by and desirable to themselves. 

Being alone promotes the personal growth that is necessary to a healthy, mature relationship.

I can’t tell you how many friends, male and female, have bemoaned their single status to me. As a single lady, I’ve been tempted to do the same, but I’ve had the luck and wisdom to learn from the mistakes and misfortunes of others. 

I have seen many otherwise intelligent individuals jump into a physical and emotional relationship with someone they hardly knew simply because they couldn’t stand to being single. They were so eager to run rampant with a stranger that it made me wonder what they were running from.

If you are addicted to and dependent on relationships, you will take a bad and unhealthy relationship over no relationship at all.

The desperation to be with someone else–anyone else– can drive you to do foolish things and get involved with someone who is far below the standards of the independent, rational and mature version of yourself.

For example, a man dying of thirst at sea is desperate for anything that looks like or resembles water. He may even begin to drink the ocean, but the salt in the ocean makes his thirst worse and kills him faster than dehydration alone. If he had not been in such a desperate time, he would not have taken such a desperate measure.

Unlike that miserable man, you have the ability to rescue yourself. You can remove yourself from that desperate state.  

The thought of being alone frightens many people, but those who let that fear drive them to entering or remaining in abusive or reckless relationships are crippled by something that is meant to empower them.

Consider it; when in a significant committed relationship, you have the strengths of two people to depend on. When single, you must find all that strength in yourself. Exploring the limits of your endurance enables you to use your full emotional, mental, and physical strength which is something that few people ever do. 

In a relationship, you have the life skills and background knowledge of two very different people. When you are alone, you must learn how to do things for yourself. Things like changing a tire, checking the oil, making your own dessert and managing a budget are things you might have relied on someone else to do instead.

In a relationship, you have the perspectives of two separate life experiences, making one’s viewpoint more broad and accurate. When you are unattached, you have to learn to see someone else’s perspective all by yourself. This makes you wiser and improves your ability to communicate effectively with others.

In a relationship, you may depend on others to make you happy. When you are alone, you learn that happiness comes from within and is not dependent upon the acts of others. Once you take responsibility for your own happiness, you begin to take steps to fulfill your desire for happiness, often by pursuing your dreams and becoming a more successful person.

If you are in good company, even when alone, then loneliness is nothing to fear. If you are not desperate to be in a relationship, then you can take your time and choose whether or not to pursue a relationship. 

Finding that you are sufficient alone has another name: self respect. 

Being able to control your life through your strength, skill, perspective and attitude makes you independent. No one respects or pursues a clingy, needy individual but everyone respects and wants to be with a strong and motivated individual.

Once you become independent, you free yourself from the addictive cycle and are able to form mature, trusting, respectful relationships with individuals as independent as yourself.

Those relationships are the best because your other doesn’t need to be with you.

They remain with you not out of necessity, not because they hate themselves and hide it in their obsession with you, not because their self esteem depends on you, not because they need to drown their sorrows in your happiness or fill their emptiness by sucking away all of your life energy.

They remain with you out of choice. They stay because they enjoy your company. They stay because they like, admire, and respect you.

You choose to stay with them because the admiration and attraction is mutual.

Isn’t choice so much more romantic than necessity?