The Perfect Mate

Here is what I believe …

All of us are searching for happiness of the enduring sort, but it often seems elusive and we struggle with where to find it. Many of us believe it will come with the arrival of that special someone in our lives – prince charming, our soul-mate, our trophy wife, our perfect mate. Some even have a laundry list of all of the qualities which define perfection for them and believe that the person who matches this list will bring them the happiness which they have long sought.

I have come to the realization, however, that real enduring happiness cannot be found by this means. Enduring joy comes from enduring love, and love is an act of giving, not taking.

When we choose to love someone we choose to open our heart to them and allow ourselves to feel deeply connected with them. When this connection is strong we naturally seek to find happiness for ourselves in *giving* to them because we are so deeply connected to them that we feel their joy as if it were our own.

If they feel similarly connected to us they will experience not only the joy of receiving but also share in the joy that we experience when feeling their joy. They too will naturally seek to experience the happiness of sympathetic joy that comes from giving to others. In this fashion love spawns a virtuous cycle of sharing that brings great joy to each and can spread happiness to all in our orbit.

When two mirrors face each other the reflection of an infinite number of mirrors can be observed when gazing into either. Such is the unbounded depth of sympathetic joy that we experience by giving to the ones we love. True intimacy is two people giving to each other not because they are seeking to receive something in exchange but because they feel genuine sympathetic joy in giving. As long as this connection is sustained both will know deep and enduring happiness. The only way to sustain such a connection through the unavoidable ups and downs of life is to commit to unconditional love. That means, in part, loving your partner with all of your heart despite their numerous flaws and imperfections.

Therein lies the problem. When we look for others to bring us happiness based on superficial criteria we are making our love conditional upon those criteria being satisfied and will withdraw it if they are not. We are going into the relationship by seeking to find happiness by taking rather than giving. We are seeking, to *use* another human being - without any real concern for their feelings - to boost our own self-image in the hope that we might be a little bit happier.

This is not love. There is no connection with our partner beyond that which is necessary to sustain that which we wish to take from them. Any happiness extracted via this method will not endure. It might last for a short while until the drug wears off and we need another fix from the excitement of a new relationship or another one night stand.

We might even blame our partner for failing to live up to our ideal of perfection and thus denying us the happiness that we desired. Rarely do we stop to question whether we might have been looking for happiness in the wrong place. More often we simply keep repeating our mistake by searching for perfection in a new partner.

The only way to end this cycle of instability is for us to summon the courage to open our heart to unconditional love for our partner despite their flaws. Doing so, however, requires learning to love ourselves despite our own flaws. Only in this way can the desire to use other people to boost our self-image be eradicated. This is the path to genuine enduring happiness.