What Being Single Really Taught Me About 'Settling Down'
After being single for more than a year, I can say that single-hood is not a status to run away from. It is rather a liberated state of being.
Many people don't understand the true meaning of being single because they are apprehensive about experiencing it in its totality. It is because they have associated it to loneliness rather than being alone. It is important to understand that being alone is different from loneliness.
A person is single because they CHOSE to be alone, to not associate themselves with another being. On the other hand, loneliness arises from the failure to disassociate. The irony is that people think that to feel complete, to feel 'un-lonely', they have to have someone; forgetting the fact that they need no one else but themselves to feel complete.
What people often fail to understand is that single-hood is a choice; it is not a waiting period.
Being single does not mean that because there is no one to spend time with, hence, it's not being devoted to someone. On the contrary, it is being given to someone much more valuable, that is, ourselves.
Single-hood is as full of love as any other relationship. Being single does not mean that we are searching for love elsewhere, but rather learning how to love oneself. Even if it is narcissist to admit, we are still in a forever growing relationship with ourselves. It is about maturing as an individual and not with an individual. It is not about growing in a relationship, rather about learning to grow alone. This is a completely different journey that a person undertakes. So if you are going to embark upon this journey, it is better to do it the right way. Like the way you would have wanted it to work with your partner.
When people around you are telling you to ‘settle down’, tell them, why settle down when I can level up and ace being single with myself.