Be Alone, Not Lonely {Guest Post}

I'm in NOLA baby!! While I'm living it up, Miss Sockwun is taking over le blog :) This post is raw and shows so much experience. Some very good notes to take young ladies!! 

----------

Sockwun Phng blogs over at ExtraExtravagant

She's a beauty and style source for reviews, look books, and guides to becoming your best. 
She has been through hell and back through her previous relationships but has learned to let go of the past. She is starting her life as a college graduate and is excited about where life will take her. 

I had recently graduated with a B.A.
I spent graduation week nostalgic and contemplative. 
The nostalgia and contemplation made me realize that, in the four years of my college career, I was single for only seven months. That was a terrifying thought because I basically wasted my college years on relationships that turned out to be a huge waste of time. In college, people get involved on campus, travel, and make lifelong friends. I was never as involved on campus as I would liked to have been, the only places where I took road trips to were with my significant others, and the friends that I made are more acquaintances than anything else.

These are terrifying thoughts for someone who had just invested four years of her life into something. The more terrifying part is that all of this had never occurred to me until my most recent romantic relationship disintegrated. I started a relationship with him in the first place, against my better judgment, because I had thought(at that point) that we were going to be together forever. I had thought the same thing about the relationship before that. Ever since I was little, I set a goal for myself that I would be married at the age of 24 and have a child at the age of 25. Every single year that passes me by is a reminder that that gap is closing. I came to learn that that goal was not only ridiculous, it also clouded my judgment. I was so focused on attaining that goal that I overlooked a lot of flaws in my relationships.

It took some time and a lot of therapy, but I was finally able to remove the blinders that were blinding me to what was really important: 

me. 

I was so focused on staying in relationships that I did my best, compromised a lot, just to keep boyfriends around. It took a huge toll on me; I lost parts of myself without even realizing it. With the support from my family, friends, and my amazing therapist, I am starting to learn how to be happy on my own. I learned to not have to place the responsibility of my happiness through someone else. 

This is my life; why am I allowing outside sources to control it?

This is, to date, the biggest life lesson that I have learned. If you are able to be happy on your own, then you are ready to invest in romantic relationships. If you enter into a relationship because you need someone to make you happy, you need to get out immediately. We all have characteristics that we look for in an ideal significant other. You should hold on to those standards because once you start overlooking flaws and settling, you are compromising true happiness for a temporary one. If your happiness depends on someone else, when they leave, your happiness leaves with them, and you end up having to find someone else to fill the void. It becomes a vicious cycle. If the only person who has control over your happiness is you, your relationships, romantic or otherwise, will be healthier because they will be more symbiotic.

The moral of this story is that you should never be afraid to be on your own. You need to learn to love yourself so that other people can love you. Relationships should not be started for convenience or dependency; they should be started for two independent people to help each other succeed in all aspects of life.



Where would you want your life to take you?