Already Complete

There’s that well-known line from Jerry McGuire – a saying which launched a thousand t-shirts … and God knows how many Valentine’s cards and marriage proposals … “You complete me.”

I get it.  It’s cute.  It puts into words that incredible feeling when someone seems to slot into your life, in such a way, that you suddenly realise they were always missing.  It illustrates the idea that two people can become one, and vocalises the idea of there being one perfect person for you.

But it also suggests that until you find that ‘other half’ you are incomplete.

Last night I went for drinks with one of the most successful women I know.  Like most of my thirty-something and single friends, she’s incredible.  She has forged a life for herself which she describes as “amazing”.  And when it came to the topic of being single, she shrugged.  “Why would I want to settle for anything that’s less than amazing?  My life is amazing with me on my own.”

It’s an attitude I love and respect – because in that sentence, she is taking control of her own happiness.

She is her own woman, and she’s not waiting around for a guy to make her happy.  She loves her life, and she has single-handedly forged a life for herself with which she’s happy and content.  No, she doesn’t have a man in it right now, but if and when she does find love, it will simply be the icing on the cake.

 

Being in love is wonderful.  Finding someone to spend the rest of your life with is something to which most of us aspire.  But happiness should never exclusively be reliant on love.

To make someone else responsible for your own happiness is a big responsibility.  And to make someone else responsible for ‘completing you’ is equally severe.  What happens if the other person can’t bear the burden.  If you’re not happy and complete to start off with, what kind of strain is that going to put on your relationship?

The starting point to a good relationship always has to be loving yourself – it’s something I repeat over and over on this blog, but also something I can’t stress enough.  There is no point launching yourself into a relationship with someone else, if you don’t love yourself.  And ultimately the only person responsible for your own happiness is you.  So nail that first!

Look at your life, and work out what makes you happy.  If there’s something you need to change in order to be happier with yourself, then make those changes.  Don’t look to other people for affirmation, find it in yourself.

People are most attractive when they are happy and confident.  And you will attract the right person for you, when you are truly happy and being yourself.  So before you look to someone else, start with yourself.

 

Complete the puzzle all by yourself, and then when you know exactly who you are, and are happy with the person staring back at you in the mirror, and the life that person leads, look for someone who COMPLEMENTS that person, as opposed to COMPLETING him or her.

It’s a bloody awesome feeling, to look at your life, and describe it as amazing!  And everyone’s take on “amazing” is different.  Your life doesn’t have to look amazing to anyone else – it just needs to feel amazing to you.

On paper I know my life is anything but amazing to some people.  For a start I was orphaned as a teenager.  A lot of people think I squandered my Cambridge degree when I headed off around the world backpacking, and spent my early twenties nannying, instead of in the City on a graduate recruitment program.  And even recently, I took a huge pay cut to leave my banking job, and gamble it all on the life of a freelance writer.  But do you know what, I love my life.  And I think my life is amazing – which is all that matters!

Every day of my life is completely different.  And these days, every day I wake up with a smile on my face.

No, there’s no one in the bed, waking up beside me.  But that doesn’t matter.  I love the life I’m living, and the only person whose opinion matters, when it comes to my life, is ME!

My world is complete.  And my life is amazing!

Who knows, the man of my dreams may walk into that life tomorrow … And that would be great.  But he wouldn’t be completing my life.  He’d be complementing it.  The icing to, what is already, a really rather fun cake!

 

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx