A discussion was running through my mind while I was waiting for the pick-up, thinking about a conversation with a friend lately. He mentioned being pragmatic in the context of marriage, meaning a marriage established not because of pure and true love, but rather due to other reasons, such as late age, matchmaking, etc. A couple of months ago, a friend of mine also talked about a romantic relationship that proceed to marriage because of the “easiness” factor, taking the example of a person that married his wife only after a relatively short time of dating and felt that the relationship was not complicated before deciding to get married. However, when one gets married because of other reasons instead of true love, this might raise an issue when a person appears in his life and find out he is in love with her, potentially making an affair or other relationship conflicts. Hence, the question might be whether it is worth waiting for the right person that we truly love or rather continuing our relationship in terms of marriage with another person that comes into our life that seems easy and not complicated even though we might not really love this person (assuming we aim to be in marriage sometime).
The root of the problem is not the waiting per se. It is the uncertainty of how long should we wait until we meet the right person. Just like waiting for the pick-up, we know that the pick-up will come eventually, but what time will it exactly arrive is still bewildering. A lot of reasons might make the pick-up comes late, maybe it is because of the traffic. Perhaps it is due to some technical issue, or probably it is simply not the time yet. This is a challenge to our patience in terms of waiting. We might think of choosing other transportation options as available. Nonetheless, it is only the pick-up that might be the best choice for many reasons. Should we wait? or should we make a trade-off with other transportation? There might even be another option: we could walk along our journey to the predetermined destination and take that pick-up along our way to the destination. However, we might arrive at our destination without taking the pick-up at all, or there might be many risks and challenges along the way that might be difficult for us to walk by ourselves so we need to take the pick-up.
One probability is that we might have met our significant others but have not realized it yet, or even have denied it. Should we wait, then? At this point, I guess so. There is time for us to make a move, and there is time to be patient and wait. It might be biased since I personally emphasize the value of passion and intimacy in a relationship, just like I value substantial and essential parts of a job. What is the point of doing something that we do not really enjoy only because of certain reasons? While sometimes we should be realistic and make a consideration, it might not be worth the time to do things that we do not really enjoy for most of our time. What is the point of being with someone for the rest of one’s life without having true love, passion, and intimacy with her? While there might be costs to this principle, for example, it might take time before meeting or finally getting into a serious relationship with a significant other that we truly love, not to mention the personal need of someone who could accompany us, and the social pressure, it might be worth the waiting.
As a closure, this waiting stuff reminds me of a conversation with my professor. I was asking whether it was worth it for her to pursue a doctoral degree with all of the time, opportunity costs, and “pain” as many people taking the degree said. And she said yes, it was worth it, eventually (of course, assuming we have our objectives that need the degree, have the passion for it, and have the seriousness, earnestness, and perseverance). It is indeed not easy, but it is requital.
hope. 