Love......the Holy Grail?

I've been giving the whole "love debate" thing a lot of thought recently, as you'll be able to see from some of my recent posts...

Having recently come out of a relationship that I thought was deeply loving with the person I wanted to spend my life with as a partner, the shock and sudden absence of this person and the emotional support and companionship of the relationship has forced me to stare at myself hard in the mirror and assess what I need to do in order to be satisfied with life on my own and whether, indeed, that is actually possible. I don't think I have an answer yet - I suspect it may take some time.............

I am a successful professional woman, financially independent but emotionally numb right now. So I am focusing on my career, and my relationship with my self. I read a comment by Tamara Mellon recently in which she said:

"Make your money and buy your freedom. I would love to inspire women to take responsibility for themselves, not to be dependent on men. Because then you can be truly happy and successful".

An admirable theory indeed but harder to execute in practice in my opinion. Of course, I understand the desire to succeed professionally and financially - I definitely subscribe to this club. But I keep coming back to the question of whether it is enough. Having a relationship with ourselves is wonderful but doesn't the search for love and for a partner ultimately make life more bearable? Can anyone ever honestly be "truly happy" without companionship and love? And if we give up on finding someone to love and who will love us warts and all, what are we really here for?

Some of the greatest writers of all time buy into the concept that love is the ultimate goal in life:

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves...." (Victor Hugo)

"Love is not a matter of what happens in life. It's a matter of what's happening in your heart" (Ken Keynes)

"Love is a butterfly, which, when pursued is just beyond your grasp, but if you will sit down quietly it may alight upon you...." (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

I do believe that the desire for love and to be loved and the constant quest and seeking of it helps to give us a purpose in life. The possibility that it might be just around the corner tantalises us, and enables us to reboot our emotional systems even when they seem to have suffered fatal errors.

Maybe the desire for fulfilment is so great that the anticipation ensures that the reality will never live up to the ideal. When we put any relationship under so much scrutiny and pressure to succeed, are we ultimately setting it up to fail because nothing can ever be perfect in this world? We try to force ourselves, our relationships, our careers, even our appearances into preconceived shapes and concepts of what they should all be.

What would happen if we just took everything a little less seriously? Would we have more chance of achieving our goals if we relaxed and allowed ourselves space for difference, thoughtlessness and compromise?

In order to achieve a truly great and sustainable love, whether that be with a partner, with ourselves, with our careers or with friends, must we in fact accept the restrictions and limitations of reality, and the fact that elements of the reality we yearn for may be unattainable.

Maybe it is time to accept that affixing all our desires and wishes so firmly to a particular ideal will always let us down. Perhaps another person, a career, or a friend will never be able to truly free us from loneliness if we remain spiritually starved deep within ourselves?