It’s interesting to note how I seem to find the most profound articles in the newspaper nowadays. I have to say the column writers are an interesting bunch, when they are not trying too hard to be funny of course. But the ones in my local paper have been coming up with some thought provoking stuff recently.
Just last week there was a female columnist who was remarking about how most of her family and friends still consider her to be unwed even though she has been legally married for close to 4 years. Just because she didn’t hold a church wedding or a wedding dinner to go along with the signing of the papers. She was talking about how the Chinese wedding dinners especially, have become such as sideshow serving no other purpose other than to show off and to pacify external family members with free food.
I may not totally agree with all her points, I for one feel that a church wedding service is the bare minimum, but I do think she is on to something. Young couples nowadays have so many expenses to deal with, let alone to throw a dinner party that can go into the tens of thousands. Especially in the slow economy that we are all facing these days. I think that a series of small, intimate dinners with groups of people who actually know each other would be enough.
And today, another columnist wrote something that touched me as well. It seems like fairy tale-like lover stories do happen in real life: boy and girl meet, love at first sight, they go out, they have problems, they break up, apart they realize that they do need each other, they work out their own individual problems, they get back together, they get engaged.
On reading it, it started out as a reminder on how my own “fairy-tale” didn’t have a happy ending. But on the other hand, I’m really happy for the writer and his partner. To have worked things out and come out of it stronger gives much hope to others who are having problems or are afraid.
However the one thing that stuck me the most, was something that I too have said to others before. He wrote that the best way to find that someone is firstly to be happy being single, to be happy being alone. For if one tries too hard to search, one’s vision is easily clouded by one’s desire. But if you are truly happy being by yourself, you would be able to clearly see the good and bad points of the person and take them at their true value.
To have this written in a newspaper is sort of like saying that yes, there is still hope. Just hang in there and learn to be happy.
