So, I've been doing a lot of thinking after I was asked a specific question the other night when having dinner with some girlfriends. While biting into my salad, my girlfriend looked over at me and asked, "if you could tell women one thing about men, what would it be?" I finished chewing and looked at her and said, "I haven't the slightest idea. Wouldn't it be easier to just let them learn their own lessons? I mean every male and every lesson is unique in it's own." She said, "eh, guess so." Of course this sparked a good hour of man bashing and fantastic female bonding.
As each girl shared their story of heartache and lessons learned, I thought to myself, what if we all listened to one another and didn't make ourselves learn the "hard way". I know that is not reality. For some reason as humans we have this burning desire to do what we know is wrong or bad for us and hope we learn a valuable lesson from it at the end.
I thought about my own lessons and my own mistakes and I realize that back in my early and mid 20s, a lot of my heartache was brought on from myself. Sure, I can blame the guy all day long but the bottom line is, I knew I was being treated badly, but I stayed anyway. My fault! Not his. All he did was take the green light I gave him to continue his behavior. Why would a selfish guy to begin with, change for somebody who is allowing him to be selfish? Duh!
Shouldn't I have known where I stood when he would never really go out of his way for me? Shouldn't I have known when he would always want me to spend holidays with him and his family but would never sacrifice a holiday from his family to spend one with mine in Texas. The answer I would get is, "it's not my fault your family lives in Texas." Oh but it certainly was an argument when I wanted to go home instead of to his family's house and I would get the guilt question, "I thought we were going to spend the holidays together?" Uhhh....ok, so that means I have to ALWAYS be the one to sacrifice MY family....yup! Selfish, did I listen to that huge red flag? No, I didn't. I could go on and on and on with red flags....not even just from one specific boyfriend but from all in the past. It's amazing how being treated like a princess is so different than being treated like second choice to....well everything.
So, if I could tell single women and men one thing about love, it would be, "have confidence in yourself and confidence in the fact that you deserve to be treated like royalty and in first place at all times. You deserve true, amazing, fantastic, breathtaking love and YES, it does exist." Have confidence and KNOW that if you aren't being treated the very best by a man or a woman that there IS somebody out there who WILL treat you the right way. Who will love you and cherish you. Every person deserves to have somebody by their side totally and completely. Every person deserves to have somebody who will always be by their side especially when in need, who will sacrifice equally in the relationship, who will put you and the relationship first, every person deserves to be with somebody who brings out the BEST in them and not the worst, and most of all who you never have to question if they truly love you. So many men and women lower their standards for somebody who doesn't show them top notch treatment. The relationship begins to lower our self-esteem and we begin to think that the good ones are all gone or that they just don't exist OR even worse..... we don't deserve real, genuine, blow your mind, once in a lifetime, amazing, phenomenal love. Well, I'm here to tell you, they do exist and they ARE out there and you DO deserve it!
Never settle and always walk away if even an ounce of you feels like you could do better. Chances are, you can!
