After my experiences with failed relationships, well maybe I shouldn’t call them failed, they have all been learning blocks leading me to the path of more wisdom. Wisdom they say comes from experience. But after these encounters, RIGHT has taken on a whole new meaning to me. Right is no longer an elusive or superficial element. Right, now has more dept and meaning.

If I were to judge who is right by my previous standards or even most of our current standards, then I have met, and even dated some Mister Right. I have found men to whom I am attracted, dated men whom I loved (vice versa), and with whom I am compatible. That about sums it up for most people. By these standards, we have the perfect ingredients to make marriage work, or so we think. But I could no longer judge right in that way, because I am still single, in spite of having met guys with whom I fell in love.

If the “right person” is right by our standards, there would be no broken relationships or marriages. All of our love relationships would work out just fine. So, the failures we encounter are perhaps a good indication that we should reexamine what the right person looks like. Now we may be thinking it differs for everyone, because one man’s food is another man’s poison, what is right for one person may not be right for the other person. And I agree with this point of view to an extent, but I am also of the school of thought that what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, period. What is right should always be applicable in every situation, at every time, and in every place. So, taking this approach into relationships, I believe a person is either right or wrong. It’s not that they are wrong for you and right for another person. At this point, I know you probably want to argue with me, but let me explain.

In my previous relationship, we were attracted to each other, we loved each other, we were compatible, our goals aligned, but we were not right. Not for each other or for any other person for that matter. Because if we happen to meet other people right after breaking up, the same issues that caused the relationship to break up will occur again. Because it was never about the other person, it was about us not being right within ourselves individually. We needed to get right with ourselves first before we can make a relationship work with anyone, given that we find the person attractive and compatible. But if we never become right as individuals, we will never be a Mister or Miss Right for anyone. We’d take the same baggage, the same flaws and the same issues into the next relationship. And if the other person happens to be a right person, our defects are likely to mess up the relationship. And God forbid the other person is defective as well, we’d end up in what I referred to as a parasitic relationship in The Colorful Path. We’d feed on each other to destruction. So, it takes two right people to make a marriage work.

What do I mean by RIGHT? Well right entails a lot of elements without which marriage is doomed to fail no matter how much we claim to “love each other”. I learned this the hard way, but I’m glad I did. Right means being in the correct posture and frame of mind to accept someone and to be in a fully committed relationship with that someone. To be financially ready, baggage free (or have a good management of your baggage), mentally prepared, spiritually sound and emotionally matured. It means being whole. Being perfectly aligned in your body, soul (mind, will and emotions) and spirit. Not fragmented.

Not having these qualities is a recipe for failure. And it’s not enough for one person to have it. It takes two to tango.

So, when I say I am waiting for Mister Right, I am not just referring to someone with whom I am compatible. I am waiting for someone who is right within himself as an individual. As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people. Well, broken people live fractured lives and they break others. If you’ve been hurt before, then I’m sure it’s an experience you don’t want to go through again. So, take the time to get healed and reconnect with who you are, so you do not end up being the perpetrator to another person. Many of us instead of dealing with our issues, whatever they may be, we cover them up and then drag them into our next relationship, only to have the same cycle repeat itself.

My message for you is to deal with it. Get healed. Become whole. Only then can you be right for anyone.

At this point in my life, I consider myself a Miss Right. But I’m ever working on me, ever evolving, and increasing my value. Whatever phase you’re in, I invite you to join me on this journey of becoming Right. I am told we attract who we are. Maybe the right person is just waiting for you to become right yourself. And the universe will bring you two together soon.

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Emulating others can of course be beneficial, if what we are emulating is their good moral disposition, excellent work ethic, their noteworthy values or other admirable qualities. But we must be careful not to fall into the error of idolizing other humans or living their lives instead of ours.

This generation has unfortunately taken celebrity worship to the extreme. Is it any surprise our obsession with fame, beauty and money? A lack of a proper self-concept or orientation leads to a lifestyle of imitation and limitation. We can only go so far in life copying others. But if we walk in our God given purpose, the possibilities of what we can achieve are endless. Like those celebrities we may end up making a lot of money or we may not. But we should also note that money is not the source of lasting joy. Have we ever wondered why many celebrities with all their fame and money engage in self-destructive habits, including drug abuse and suicide?

That’s because there still exists a void, a hollowness within them that money or fame cannot fill. If this proves nothing else, it attests that money is not everything! So instead of chasing after the wind, let us instead pursue purpose. This is after all the reason for existence. We must find our original intent.

However, we cannot discern purpose without reaching within to unearth what has been placed deep inside of us by the Creator. We humans are after all spirits. The human is a triune entity with a spirit, soul and body. We often forget who we are. Captured by what we see in the physical realm, we govern our lives based on the limits of our intellect. Only a few of us ever dig further within to uncover what truly is the will of God for our lives.

Thus I cannot discuss wholeness without discussing spirituality. When that word come up, we often conjure images of bald monks in orange robes, meditation, yoga and praying in a temple. Not realizing how close and familiar that word ought to be to us. Our spirituality, the quality of being concerned with our inner life is everything!

But we often ignore the spirit realm, failing to acknowledge that the seen world is subjected to the unseen. The spiritual realm, although hidden from the physical eye controls everything in the visible world.

There is so much depth to this subject that cannot be covered in a single blog post. But I’ll leave you with this. In order to be a truly whole human being, in lack of nothing, we must reconnect with our inner man, which we can only do through a communion with God, the Giver of life.

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I had ended a relationship the previous year, hastily walked into another which had also ended right before that summer and I was on the verge of yet another which some moments of hard truth led me to acknowledge was not the right one for me.

It was the summer I turned twenty-five but assuredly felt thirty. I have always been older than my age. Although not a stranger to heartbreaks and broken hopes I was still very much hopeful. Albeit not as innocent as I had been before my first heartbreak, I was still young and cheerful. But even in my optimistic and carefree state, I always felt the weight of purpose and was always cognizant of the fact that time was a winged gift that keeps flying.

Marriage was on my mind. Not for the reason most people want marriage or for the reason most people want to get married. Rather marriage was one of the accomplishments I thought I needed to check off my list, so I can move on to the next. As a woman who has chosen addressing marital issues as a viable profession, I know marriage is a critical determinant in how people would respond to me.

But wanting marriage as a means to an end is not enough reason to enter into that covenant. It requires more care and delicacy has I have come to learn through various experiences, mine and that of others.

Marriage, arguable, requires first and foremost finding who you are and being firmly established in that identity that nothing or no one can change it. Our individuality tends to fade away in the shuffle to be an “us”. We often fail to comprehend it is most important for us to be a whole individual and be fully confident in who we are before conjoining ourselves to another. I said as much in The Colorful Path.

Some of us have had a number of relationships in which we lost a little piece of who we are. In an attempt to make it work, we often conform to the taste of the other person, whereby we become who they want us to be not who we genuinely are. In a perfect case scenario, we should all be accepted for who we are. But every relationship has a form of conformity, even successful ones.

For those of us who have invested time, money, and effort into relationships that ended up failing, we need to take time to rediscover ourselves. But often we jump into the next, repeating the same cycle. When only if we would just take the time to be truly single we would recognize we may have never initiated any of those relationships to begin with.

For many of us, after a relationship ends, we realize we deserve better but then we move on to the next only to have that fail as well, bringing us to the same conclusion again, “I deserve better.” But why do we keep repeating these circles?

My hypothesis is that we do not spend enough time being who we are. What do I mean by that? Many of us do not invest quality time in discovering and building ourselves, so it becomes very easy to fall into wrong relationships, firstly because, we attract who we are, and secondly because we do not have enough self-esteem or confidence to wait for or go for what we truly deserve. And so, we settle until we are forced to break free or break up. If only we would elevate ourselves to that level of completeness and complete confidence, we would discover we do not need anyone to begin with, because we are not lacking anything. And if someone does come along, they are there to complement us, not fill up a missing void.

And for those of us in a relationship, that shouldn’t be the end of your self-discovery either. We often make the mistake of priming ourselves for the right person and when that person appears we abandon that course. Not understanding that refining ourselves should be a continuous process. This explains to a large extent why many relationships fail. We package ourselves to look good so we could get somebody, and when we get them, they discover the real deal is no good.

All these nuggets of wisdom, I did not appreciate that summer eve when the word Found was dropped into my spirit. It was after yet another failed relationship that I discerned that the word was not so much for the many readers I hope will read the book, but rather for me. I needed to be found.

Many of us need to find ourselves or rediscover who we are. We need to understand that we are not defined by a relationship or a lack of it. Singleness is not a transitory phase, it’s a continuous state of being whether or not we are in a relationship. We need to persistently pursue what makes us unique, attractive and valuable. Some of us used to be so confident, but we lost it and some of us just never had it. And so, we hold ourselves back from going after what we truly deserve, not only in relationship but in other aspects of life.

We need to rebuild our confidence. Invest time, money and energy into cultivating ourselves. You are your own best asset. You cannot be of value to another person if you do not first and foremost value yourself.

This is the goal I have set before me in 2019 and I invite you all who are reading this to join me on this journey of self-discovery and enhancement. Depending on what stage we all are in our lives, we can always start from somewhere. As long as we remain humans, we can always find areas in which we can improve.

I welcome you all into the year 2019. I pray with all my heart it is for you the best year of your life yet!

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