Just this morning, I heard over the radio a debate that the DJ's of the morning show was staging. It revolves around the topic of 'Should You Wait For the Perfect Partner?'. One DJ said that if he had to wait a million years for the perfect partner to come along, he would while the other said that there is no perfect match for anybody in this world.
I find this topic amusing. While the show's DJs are clearly approaching the topic with a pinch of salt with the main aim of entertaining the listeners, there is some wisdom that we can gain from it.
The prompt for the topic was the news that Kim Kardashian got divorced after only 72 days of marriage. This is ridiculous of course but it seems to be the norm among the celebrities. Just before that news, the world was abuzz over their lavish wedding and all.
Talking about divorces, the trend now is that divorce rates are climbing fast all over the world. This begets the question of what actually happened. Why are couples looking to divorce instead of trying to make it work? Isn't marriage supposed to be a commitment? Isn't marriage supposed to be sacred?
In my humble opinion, it has a lot to do with the youths nowadays expecting everything to be paved for them. They have this weird sense of entitlement. That the world owes them a living and whatever else they want. I do not know where or how this notion got into the system but it's there.
This also means that a lot of people out there are looking for a perfect partner. A one size fits all. When they find that their spouse is not the perfect one, then they divorce. It's quite sad. Truth is, there is no perfect partner. It's all a myth. There is no perfect partner because all humans are flawed but it seems like the young ones can't get this through their thick skull.
In the old days, when people get married, they have this sense of commitment to the marriage. They are commited to make it work and thus most marriages will last. This is because people put in the effort to make it work. Unlike today where these young couples seldom put in any effort and just expect the marriage to work.
When you see an elderly couple still holding hands when they go out, you will think that they have found the perfect partner. If not, they will not be so loving even after so long, right? That is the furthest from the truth. What I think is that these loving elderly couple did not find a perfect partner. What they did was to create the perfect partner.
You see, I think that back in the old days when people get married, they will be thinking, "Well, that's that. I'm now married. So let's make the best out of it!" When they think this, they will focus on making the marriage work. They will put in the effort to keep the relationship going. In the process they will discover the other person's strengths and weaknesses and learn to focus on their strengths and forgive their weaknesses and ultimately create a 'perfect' partner for each other.
Alas, young couples nowadays think differently. They have in their mind an idea of a perfect match. They go looking and then find someone that they think will match this ideal. They get married but eventually the inital euphoria will die out and real life settles in. It is then they will discover that their partner is not actually perfect. That they have weaknesses. They become disillusioned and when they hit a major bump on the road, they decide that their spouse is not their perfect match and so they divorce in the hope that they can continue to search for their perfect match.
This is the sad part. The perfect match will remain an idea. It cannot be realized because in real life, nothing is perfect. So if they still think that they can find a perfect match, then the search will never end and they can never become an elderly loving couple.
