Just Shoot Me......Im Single!

So many times we hear the NEGATIVES to being single (No one to go to the movies with, no Valentine's Day gifts, etc.) but I thought it would be quite encouraging to list some of the benefits to being single. After all, I don't think that being single is ALL THAT BAD! It definitely has its PERKS. Besides, these days it is FAR MORE COMMON for single people get married and then wish they were single again, rather than the other way around. Isn't it quite funny that the very state of being that sooooo many people RUSH to leave, knowing that marriage will finally make them happy, magically turns into a place of freedom and relief once their haste-turned-waste marriage relationship is FINALLY over?!?!? (We all know those people who were consumed with the idea of getting married, and now that they are divorced are SO EXCITED TO FINALLY BE FREE!)........But oh, if we could just learn to enjoy the benefits of SINGLENESS upfront rather than in retrospect maybe we would be willing to REMAIN SINGLE long enough to evaluate new relationships more carefully and enter into unions that last.

These are my Top 5 Perks To Being Single! (Feel free to add your own in the comments section!)

1. The freedom to do WHATEVER you want!!! (when, where, AND how YOU WANT)

    I have been so blessed to be surrounded by married friends for well over 10 years. Trust that I am taking notes!!! Seeing them truly makes me look forward to being married, but guess what? One of the consistent sacrifices that I've seen is the freedom for them to do whatever they want to do without someone else being okay with it. Lets be real! When you commit your life to another person, EVERY decision that you make from that point forward directly or indirectly affects the person whom you married. Because of that, the courteous thing is to fill them in on what you're doing. You dont have to give EVERY DETAIL! (Im sure your future spouse will be okay without you ANNOUNCING each time you go to the bathroom) #ImJustSaying  However, Bottom line.........Im GLAD I dont have to "CHECK IN." The only things I DONT DO..PLACES I DONT GO.....MONEY I DONT SPEND.......are because I decided it was not best for me!

2.  Time freedom to serve others!

     Singleness is the only time in your life where you are free to truly give and minister to the needs of others outside of your home, and can make that a TRUE PRIORITY. Once you become married, your first responsibility is to meet the needs of those INSIDE of your home. AFTER they have been taken care of, THEN you can save the world, feed all the children of the earth, and clothe the nation. When you're single, you can truly enjoy the spontaneity that comes with being available to go when and where you are needed. This is an enormous benefit of single life, that I think we as singles often overlook.     Singledom, is such a precious time that can be beautiful if utilized properly! So get off the couch! Stop feeling sorry for yourself....and get caught up in helping others. Volunteer, join community organizations, create a program for youth, widows, or the elderly and utilize your time to make the lives of other people more enjoyable. In return, yours will become more delightful as well. 

3. Opportunity to SAVE MONEY!

      I cant begin to tell you the number of married people (especially men) that have expressed how they REALLY wish they would've SAVED MORE MONEY during those single years! Quite honestly, many of them have said that they didn't even REALIZE they were BROKE until they GOT MARRIED!!! During their single years, they were actually doing pretty well for themselves, or so they thought! But how things changed when all of a sudden there were 2 mouths to feeds and 2 bodies to clothe. What once looked like OVER FLOW, now was BARELY FLOWING AT ALL! When the river is flowing and you're the only one in the boat...........SAVE as much WATER as you can!....You'll need it later!

4. Chance to discover YOURSELF!

    How many times in life do we get to hear our own voice, see the world through our own eyes and discover what we do or don't like for ourselves?!?! Don't be so eager to see who you are through another person's eyes. Each one of us has specific things that make us unique. Unfortunately, so many of us spend this time being tossed to and fro, in and out of relationships, adjusting and changing ourselves to please whomever we happen to be with at the moment that we never truly discover who we are!! There are things that I know about myself today, that I had no clue about last year or the year before and quite honestly if I was "boo-ed up" or "locked down" right now, I still may never know. Enjoy this time to truly find yourself rather than spending so much energy looking for someone else. When the person of your dreams does come along, they want someone who KNOWS WHO THEY ARE! Don't sell yourself OR them short by missing out on the opportunity to discover your strengths, weaknesses, favorite and most distasteful things! You are worth DISCOVERING!

5.  Opportunity to FOCUS on your purpose RELENTLESSLY!

      Why are you here??? For what SPECIFIC purpose were you CREATED? What PROBLEM are you on Earth to SOLVE?!? What is the ONE THING that YOU can do like no one else can???? If you don't know the answer to those questions.....therein lies how you should focus your time and energy--seeking out the answers! If you DO know the answers to those questions.....then GET TO IT! You have a problem to solve, and quite frankly it wont get solved in between the tears of your" Im still single" pity party! There are people with REAL ISSUES, SERIOUS QUESTIONS, that need REAL SOLUTIONS and PRACTICAL ANSWERS! They are waiting for YOU !!! Once you discover your life's purpose, that thing that will bring all the puzzle pieces of your life together, and cause every victory, mistake, disappointment, and triumph to make sense.....you will want to GO FULL SPEED AHEAD pursuing that purpose with everything that lies within you!!! And what better time to do IT than NOW....while you're single! GET ER DONE!!!! HOP TO IT!

I hope that this short list of PROS outweigh the CONS that have consumed your time and energy. I'll be honest, the CONS do exist but much too often the negatives of being single (especially the ones that keep running through our minds over and over-like not having someone to cuddle with on a Friday night) are so small, so minor, so minute compared to the PROs in which we could be taking FULL ADVANTAGE! These are LIFE ALTERING ADVANTAGES both for YOU and the entire WORLD that's waiting for you to SHAKE YOURSELF OFF and get to MAKING AN IMPACT!....So GET TO IT!

I love you precious WAITERS!

        

Having Sex Too Soon Can RUIN Your Relationship: "Married At First Sight" Couples Consummate Their Marriages!

If you haven't been watching "Married At First Sight" the new social experiment that airs on the FYI network each Tuesday night at 9pmEST.......then WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING?!?!?! This captivating show features three unique male/female couples who've agreed to get married to perfect strangers, stay married for four weeks, and then decide at the end of the one month period if they'd like to continue the marriage relationship with their newly found ideal mate. Each couple was chosen from a pool of over 1000 applicants in the NYC area. Each applicant was sent through a gruel-some process of tests, survey, questionnaires and interviews conducted by a panel of 4 experts, including a spiritual adviser, a sexologist, a psychologist, and a sociologist.

Last week, we watched these couples tie the knot and LAST NIGHT we got a glimpse into "THE BIG WEDDING NIGHT." Interestingly enough, of the three couples only one  actually HAD SEX the night of their marriage. In essence, by doing-the-do, that couple was having sex with someone they'd only met earlier that day. Did the fact that they were legally married change the ramifications of such reckless behavior??................. 

Apparently not!!! The show's sexologist even went on explain that physical intimacy is the most shallow form of intimacy that exists. Taking part in this intimacy too soon robs the pair of the opportunity to develop true emotional intimacy, which takes much more time. She expounded on the fact that emotional intimacy is one built on a bond, trust, and takes vulnerability from each party. Whereas physical intimacy is just that....sharing your body with someone else. And we got to see first hand, the seemingly detrimental consequences of making this surface-based choice.

The couple who decided to go all the way...numbed by drinking themselves into a drunken state, nonetheless....struggled. They struggled through the remainder of the episode to "get to know" and to trust one another.It seemed extremely difficult for them to grow their relationship past a surface, physical based level. In addition, it led them to disagreeably argue about the depth of their relationship. There was confusion about if the "connection" they seemed to have in bed was REAL. 

The other couples, on the other hand vowed to take things slow and develop a true emotional connection seemed to have a much deeper attraction towards one another. They had every right to go ahead and have sex with their mate, but instead decided to WAIT!  They wanted a more solid foundation before entering into such a physical relationship with one another. One couple even went on to say that they WERE physically attracted to each another, but decided to wait because they wanted it to mean more. And it showed obviously, at least through the end of last night's episode, that the smartest thing to do concerning entering a SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP with another person is to WAIT!!

Will the WAITING couples last? Will the eager couple end in divorce? Who knows? We'll have to keep watching. But at least for one night, it seemed to prove beneficial to pump the brakes when it comes to jumping into bed with someone else. Move to soon, and you rob the relationship of its true potential!

WAITING WITH EXCITEMENT!

Hurry Up!.......And WAIT!

Hurry up and WAIT.....Hurry up and WAIT!!!......Where the heck is my MATE?!?!?! This seems to be the life story of so many Singles today. We've all heard the advice, seen the blogs, read the books. Everybody seems to have a MAGIC formula to rescue us from this DEATH SENTENCE called Singleness. There seem to be thousands of formulas, recipes, and algorithms for how to master this place of solitude and WIN the GAME with MARRIAGE as the ultimate prize!

Not only do I strongly disagree with MOST of the advice out there, but I have a serious issue with the idea that being single is an INFERIOR position in life! No, I am not anti-marriage! On the contrary, I am a huge supporter of it. However, I strongly believe that the demise of marriage in this country is largely due BOTH to the pressure placed on singles to enter into this sacred union, AND our culture's view (especially in the south) that a person cannot reach true fulfillment or happiness unless they've committed their lives to another person! It sends single people, like me,  into this time-ticking frenzy in order to show the world, we've reached a place of maturity, overcome obstacles, and achieved the ultimate success. How do singles, migrate through this maze of confusion, depression, despair, and unrealistic expectations.........we hurry up and WAIT!  We rush to implement the latest advice we've read, knowing that this will be THE THING to cause our KNIGHT  in shining armor or the WOMAN of our dreams running to sweep us off of our feet! Or we hurry to jump into the next relationship, or the bed of the next person KNOWING that this is "the one" we've always wanted.....and then we WAIT. The implementation of the advice doesn't work, or at least doesn't seem to work; we soon find out that he or she is NOT THE ONE and the cycle continues! We become disappointed once again, feeling as though we've wasted time and energy expecting something that may never happen. This place of loneliness feeds our pity parties until the NEXT BIG THING that we are certain will rescue us from our pathetic, melancholy lives of boredom and sadness. And once again we are off to HURRY UP and WAIT!

I challenge you, as I've challenged myself to refuse to HURRY UP and WAIT, and to instead adopt a lifestyle of WAITING! Not waiting in the sense of sitting around, twiddling our thumbs, eager for the next Joe Bob to show up so that we can load him down with our baggage, problems, life's disappointments and regrets, but rather waiting as in -to wait, -to serve, -to work towards our life's purpose. We are responsible for our own life's happiness! Once we figure out why the heck we are here, what in the world we're supposed to be doing, and HURRY to do THAT........we wont be waiting for long! Even if we are, SO WHAT! We'll be so fulfilled with life, the beauty of finally living it, and enjoying all that it offers........that the grass will finally be GREEN on OUR side and people will be wanting to jump the fence to BE US, not the other way around.

Won' you WAIT with me????