Forever

Yeah, so February 14, 2018 is just around the corner, and for sure many of my romance-rabid countrymen are going to go gaga for all things mushy -- flowers, chocolates, dates, cards, candle-lit dinners, proposals and whatnot's.

I have no problem with that, really. Especially if the mushy stuff is actually backed by sincere sentiments and concrete commitments. What worries me are the "kids" that speed headlong in to "love" without any concept of what relationship are for (I used to be one of those).

Here in the Philippines, one of the pervading cultural malady is the extraneous exigency of finding "forever" -- that special someone who will supposedly satiate all of one's emotional longings. Mr. or Ms. Forever is the one who is believed to never give you up, never let you down, never give you the run around, never desert you, never make you cry, never say goodbye, never tell a lie, and never hurt you. Many adhere to this mindset.

From hormone-fueled preteens to rom-com-influenced adults, there seems to be this mad rush to meet Mr. or Ms. Right so they can finally acquire the status of being a couple, like it's a commodity fast running out of stock. Sadly, because of this love rush, consequences are almost always overlooked, but always never avoided.

As I have written in a previous blog entry, rushing into love is not always a good thing. It pains me to see men and women of any age enter romantic entanglements and never ever getting untangled. The ensuing heartbreak, bitterness, and confusion more often than not become their definition of what love is, which unfortunately color their future relationships. The embittered would usually say, "There's no such thing as forever!" While there may  be some truth in that statement, and although our relationships on Earth don't really last forever (in the strictest sense), I do believe some relationships -- the marital ones -- are meant to last for life.

Perhaps if we would just take time to slow down and think about our life and love issues, wait for heightened emotions to subside, and get a health amount of wise counsel, we might get a much needed paradigm shift -- one that leaves the unrealistic demands of forever, and embraces the levelheaded sobriety of commitment for life.