At a weekly gathering, at noon on Tuesdays, a “friend” shared how he is trying to wait until marriage to have sex with his partner. He explained how, although that might not be what other people define as their expectations, it is his, and his spiritual obligation, regardless of whether he wants it to be or whatever other people think.
I have been mulling over in my head for the week what I’ve thought for the past ten years would make me happy. For the longest time I believed that a car, a job, a wife, and a son would be all I would ask of the world, and if I got those things, then I would be happy.
I have come to realize that I may have been putting the cart before the horse, and never once asked myself what makes me happy.
I think there are different kinds of happiness, and I am not here to write that those things on my list don’t make a man happy. But why should they make a man happy?
To go places? To have money? To have sex?
If I get a car, I want to earn it. Better yet, I enjoy walking.
If I get a job, I want it to be doing something I love, or believe is meaningful. Better yet, I like working for myself.
If I marry, I sure as hell better love the woman, and she ought to make me happy. Better yet, give me something in life I can’t give myself.
If I have a child, I’d better not care what gender it is, and I’d better not bring someone into the world without knowing a thing or two. Better yet, knowing how to love something truly.
I think that those titles are things people try to acquire in America rather than actually valuing. And, for some reason, we devalue people who don’t have those things by a certain age.
It is very hard to think for oneself. It is not easy to tell myself that my life is enough without these things the older I get. But, it is harder to lie to yourself that these are things you want when you really don’t. And I do, but not for the sake of having them.
I have to be honest. Writing doesn’t make me happy anymore. I no longer sit and just frivolously write because it is a joy. The best writing I do, I cry at my desk and write. It is a source of pain that transcends pain, not joy. But I do it because I believe in it. It matters to me.
Maybe it comes off as selfish, and pretentious, and will end up making me the loser when I say that “writing” matters more to me than love, or a job, or the car. But the older I get, the more I learn I don’t know, and how little I thought I knew when I was young and proclaimed Love the answer to the stars and the universe.
The only thing that is supposed to matter is the relationships we have during our short time on earth. But why? Because for all the friends and lovers I’ve known, it is still me, myself, and I at the end of the night. Ain’t nobody ever loved that man the way he needs to be. And ain’t nobody gonna love the world the way it needs to be besides him.
The worst thing a person can do is think it is selfish to love oneself. The ability to love others is a byproduct of our ability to love ourselves. If people tell me I am a bad person, and when I think I am a bad person because I don’t meet some vague expectations of my society, it only creates an imbalance of one’s ego to strive for more, to become better than, and therefore separates oneself from the connection; I think it only contributes to a superiority complex that separates us from others, disguised as furthering a connection with myself.
But, I think, ideally, the goal of loving yourself, is to be able to love. Because it is hard to love. It is hard to not think you are better than everyone and still not good enough.
Ben Bonkoske 