Love is a Battlefield

At least, according to the Pat Benatar song, I'm always vacillating between believing romance takes work and if you stop looking for it, it will simply come your way. As you know by now, I spend loads of time soul searching. It's seldom about meeting the one, but becoming the one for myself. I always figure, if I can just get my act together on my own, the romance will follow naturally.

Therefore, maybe the real quandary in my life isn't whether love will come without work. It's deciding how to be proactive in my own life first, rather than actively seeking out someone with whom to fall in love. Nevertheless, in my solitary reflection, I do at times become a tad lonely and feel as if I'm reaching the breaking point on my solo personal quest to be the best that I can be.

As, I was brought up rather religiously, I'm often struggling with deciding whether believing that mind over matter can make a difference is a way to create miracles in one's existence or merely misguided and naive, magical thinking. Ironically, although some people might think that religion is in itself a form of superstition, I was always warned in my youth to count on nothing else.

My father made it perfectly clear that if you started to believe that wishes could come true that it was the perfect opportunity for the devil to step in and trick you into believing in such human falsehoods, as luck and good fortune. In his mind, there was no such thing. You had to work hard and accept that God's plan for your destiny was the only thing that ruled your future.

Nevertheless, I just started watching the film entitled The Secret, which proposes in a rather New Age way that by techniques such as visualization that we can achieve dreams without even understanding how to succeed at bringing them to fruition. It also talks about the law of attraction. How we see ourselves is what we attract into our daily existence.

I remain skeptical, but have recognized that in my dating life, I always attract individuals that perhaps represent negative aspects of my own personality that have often been the focus of criticism from others. I wonder if I saw myself differently maybe, I would draw better-quality matches.

For example, on a site such as E Harmony where you take a personality test, rather than merely describing yourself, maybe I would find that being measured by a standard more objective would concentrate less on my insecurities and more on my strengths. For now, I simply repeat the mantra, as I wait for my close up, "Be a star. You can be a star!"

Do you want some more help?