Love is still the greatest journey of all...

Re-evaluate

2-4-2010

I had the great pleasure of seeing a dear friend of mine the other night, both of us single, I have several single male friends and a couple female single friends. We all seem to experience some of the same ups and downs and we are all 30something, I just barely turned 40 so I still feel comfortable saying that, especially since I dont think I neither look 40 or feel 40. The trend though is disheartening and I do feel it is compellingly noteworthy. I think it all starts with the way the past couple of generations is growing up. I think my generation was one of the last of its kind in the values and morals sense. My ex was part of the next generation and his raising was different, and not entirely due to his parents persay but just the overall environment he grew up in publically, socially, etc. The generations have become so completely about 'me' and so morally flagrant, sexually flagrant, unable to uphold or even care about good old fashioned values and something called commitment. I am going to be harsh here and I am not perfect, but what I can say is that I was a true blue honest, faithful, stand by your man and work through and for your marriage wife. I was raised to believe that anything worth having was worth working and fighting for and if you wanted it bad enough you had to get it just that way, nothing would be handed to you on a silver platter and I wasnt born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I worked from the time I was old enough to hold a job, I moved out when I was 18, I graduated high school and college was not an option it was expected, certain grades were expected and anything lower was not tolerated, I was taught respect my elders etc... you get the idea... old fashioned morals and values, traditions important concepts that go back hundreds of years .....Today as the generations grow up they are all about instant graitifcation, they reach for a calculator to solve a math problem and probley couldnt do an algebra problem by hand, they lack something essential to life.. PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS... you may laugh but this is an absolute necissity of life... and yea I spelled that wrong, spelling isnt a requirement at least not perfectly, but I dont rely on spell check to fix it, I backspace and fix it myself most the time unless I am not sure how to spell it... anyway... problem solving skills.... Think about it... seriously... if you dont have problem solving skills you cant do much of anything with any great amount of sucess...unless you are either very lucky or you have a lot of help. And to make my point a little faster... I am getting at the fact that todays kids are so wrapped up in this instant gratification and technology aides that they dont have the same problem solving skills many of us older folks have, not to say none do, it is just much less prevalant... which shows in an 80% divorce rate. Our grandparents didnt make it being married for 40 years by deciding after 5 that they had enough and would just get a divorce and try the next one on. Wake up people... you are the generation of multiple marriages.... what is wrong with you people? Seriously, I am not saying everyone so dont go sending me crappy messages about how you have been married three times and blah blah... we all have our circumstances, but I hung out and worked at a marriage that I carried and helped nurture from someone in that younger generation with a lack of problem solving skills and do it for me so I can get there faster mentality...... work hard and you usually reap the rewards unless you are just an asshole people cant stand.... back to the main concept here.... failed marriages... and now a generation of men that dont want to commit because they are fed up with either being married more than one, women who either cheat or are so materialistic and high matinance its rediculous, or men who just cant keep it in their pants for a variety of reasons.... now someday all of the forementioned individuals are going to be cloging up the old folks homes where some nurse is going to have to help take care of their bitchy crabby resentful ass and some will feel sorry for them not knowing they brought this all on themselves.... the continuing down side to all of this is that the cycle as it continues and has continued is creating a huge... HUGE over 40 Single divorced adults population and a LARGE portion are single parents... and we know the down side there...that is an entire new conversation full of statitics of what can occur from single parent homes..not because of bad parenting just because when it broke.... the kids just arent the same... and the divorced parents now have to contend with rebuilding a life of their own at the same time in a growing population of divorced single parents that have decided to just have casual sex and avoid commitment because the taste is so bad from the previous baggage they would rather be alone and in control and run over and miserable.... or at least that is what they think at the time... then they get older and older and about 50 unless they are rich... reality starts to set in and they realize they are approaching retirement alone.... Okay...so I wont even go there because it can go so many ways at that point, but in the meantime gosh there is enough emotional disturbance with all the single parented kiddos and the single parents themselves why even bother worrying about the older folks right now.. we can chew for hours on just this.... so at this point... some have given up for a while... then eventually somewhere along the road hopefully they meet someone that makes them feel a bit more risky and they may make another attempt at a long term commitment and maybe even marriage... WAKE up if you are young, if you are currently in your first marriage, if you are contemplating getting married, if you are in your second marriage... wake up now stop and think long and hard about your future if you decided to give up, throw in the towel... you have NO IDEA what you could be getting into... evalute your options carefully, make sure you have tired everything humanly possible to save your marriage before you leave... make sure before you get married you both are on the same page in the long term... people do NOT take marriage as seriously as they should... this isnt supposed to be something in life you can OPT to do over! This is supposed to be a lifetime commitment, (within reason, we arent talking about abuse etc) I am talking about a lack of fight, a lack of values, a lack of dicipline, morals, whatever the plague could be, be ready to deal with it and fight for the choices YOU make.... if we had more people that did that... we wouldnt have a divorce rate this high, we wouldnt have STD's this high, teenage preganacy this high, kids not graduating this high... everything starts with the FAMILY foundation.... how you handle adversity is teaching not only those around you but youself included... allow yourself to learn from your mistakes, dont repeat them.... understand that just because you may not want to...isnt always a reason to quit... I am disappointed at this age, a great age... I should be looking into a sea of adults that have lived, learned and learned how to do it better and want that chance to have it the way it should be and are willing to do it right the next time and realize they probley shouldnt have given up the first time.... (mitigating circumstances allowed of course) but be rationale. I was and that is why I was married for 14 years... in the end, it wasnt really my call, it was his, he couldnt get it together and it was easier for him to run that to do what he should have done... I always fought the battles wages to win the war of love and marriage and hope for a bettter tomorrow, just like I do at work everyday with this very challanging group of kids I try to teach everyday who are coming from this very rooted generations... we as people have created our own dimise and we dont entirely see it because we are just standing around admiring all the beautiful trees..... strength is hard to find and come by when you feel some empty inside...but I realized something tonight when I was dirving home after a 12 hour day of work... sometimes we need to break ourselves completely down...especially when we loose everything we know...in order to build ourseleves back up... sometimes we need to cry and feel and come to our knees to refocus, find strength, courage and tinacity to go at it another day knowing that in fact... Everyday is a New Day....and tomorrow can be better and will be better made by our own choice to not only believe that but to believe in ourselves and the inate goodness of people...despite the tragedy of the big picture... we all still feel at some level....it just varies on what it takes to bring us to the depth of our emotions. Its okay to start over, its hard, but in essense we have the advantage of going forth with great knowledge of the past and years of life experience from many sides if we paid attention along the way.... and if we can all just have a little more faith in humanity, and in ourselves... then maybe we can begin to have faith that strong relationships are still possbile and even probable, we just have to be open to the idea... we cant shut out the world and live by the seat of our pants indefinately... at some point we need to share the emotional reins and love with all we have to give... its okay to risk it... and its okay, we might get hurt.... but if we dont try..... if we dont put ourselves out there....have faith...believe in love...after all... wasnt it love in some form that started it all??? We dont really have much to loose.....except maybe our hearts to the greatest journey in life.... life itself and it is so much more amazing when we feel the journey with our hearts... God Bless everyone.... tell someone that you love them today that you havent told in a while... but really let them know you mean it.... love changes the world every second of every day.... nothing is inspired by less than love.