Mostly about developing your whole self, and how to be/get to the place where you can be happy and ready for a relationship without needing one. One of my daily columns that I check (updated once or twice a week) because even for someone in a relationship it has useful information. And I definitely had to go through and to some extent am still going through the process she describes. They don’t archive these for long unfortunately.
Single File
BY SUSAN DEITZ
ACCELERATION: LIVING AS-IF
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Now is the time to remind yourself that you are the only person who can turn the present — and all that it can be — into what you want. No marital status can do it, no amount of money can do it. The right outfit, the right job, the right salary can’t get the job done. No — your fulfillment, the kind that warms the heart and feeds the soul — can come only from your choices.
But before you make the ones right for you, those tigers have to be tamed, the fears that come in the wee hours of the morning and whittle you down with a litany of negative possibilities: What if my child never again had a father? What if I got really sick and couldn’t be there for him? What if that nice man I met the other night doesn’t call? What if he doesn’t like the way I’ve arranged my life?
Those pesky what-ifs were bad enough, but the most awful one of all would sit on my shoulders and refuse to budge, even when daylight crept in: What if I never got married again?
During more midnight awakenings than I care to recall, the same composed woman who is writing this was reduced to a panicky child. But those painful meetings had a purpose — to test my faith (in life, in myself). And the epiphany to accept my single status and get on with making it happy and productive was the first step in the maturing process that would eventually deliver me from the tigers’ grip. That realization gave me strength and direction to steer our small family by using my own resources. It marked the end of sitting on the sidelines and waiting to be rescued. It seemed so radical back then, brand new in my life yet common-sense. Oddly, after I vowed to stop running and face the Big Whopper of fears — that I might never marry again — its power over me was, for the most part, drained. Gradually, my paralysis left me. I was finally free to move on and build a life for myself . . . because I had decided to live As If I Would Always Be Single. That has proven to be the only constructive as-if.
But that doesn’t mean lifelong singleness. (Actually, the As-If Life brings more romantic choices and many more social opportunities . . . because you’re interested in life, not maritally obsessed. And that, believe me, is deeply intriguing to the other sex.)
It does mean making your life your own. It does mean structuring the present in an organized, cohesive, long-range (!) time frame. BUT while this approach is designed for the long haul, please be sure it will not keep you unmarried one second longer than you want. And, in fact, the expansion and involvement built into the As-If Life could actually catapult you out of the single community sooner than later. Love seems to have a better chance for survival in a life made full and rich before its arrival!
I most certainly didn’t know it then, but instinctively I was putting into place the cornerstones of the As-If Life: appropriate and secure housing, financial planning, a satisfying career and enriching relationships. It was strictly trial-and-error, two steps forward and one backward, but making decisions my way, to fit my family’s needs, felt good. My judgment was on the line daily, and as it grew stronger, so did my confidence.
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So, I put it to you to use your judgment and make those cornerstones solid in your Life. You’ll build it your way, of course, in your personal style, to meet your needs. (And you’ll find, as I did, that the basics of that Life are easily melded into a love partnership to make it stronger and more harmonious.) More about that next time. But for now, consider the pluses of a life lived in the moment:
– Continuity: Life has a plan, and your major decisions are in line with it.
– Confidence and Self-Esteem: Results of seeing your capability in action.
– Independence: You take charge of your life. Period.
– Easier Decision-Making: You approach every problem with the same mindset, rather than sorting through confusion, doubts, conflict and those awful what-ifs for each new problem.
– Living in the Present: Your decisions are based on what is, not what could or might be.
– Freedom: You are freed from unreal limitations.
This period of singleness gives you a choice. It can be a time of supercreativity . . . or an endless interim lived in the halfway zone, always hoping and waiting, never living in the present. It’s up to you.
Write to Susan Deitz c/o this newspaper. She will answer all letters that come with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Or, you may e-mail her at info@creators.com
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Originally Published on Friday April 1, 2005
