Have you met Ted?
I hope you have in some manner. I’m talking about the sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ and the lessons you can learn from Valentines Day from the one and only Ted Mosby.
I’ll admit that Ted’s incessant internal battle for “The One,” annoyed the crap out of me. In hundreds of ways, it is inspiring to have the kind of emotional endurance he showed. Even though his battle led him to wear red cowboy boots, get beaten up by a goat and get left at the alter, Ted found what he wanted.
Here’s why: “Love doesn’t make sense. You can’t logic your way into or out of it. Love is totally nonsensical. But we have to keep doing it, or else we’re lost and love is dead and humanity should just pack it in.”
Want the end of that quote? You’ll have to wait for it.
I know plenty of people that don’t like Valentines Day. I’m one of them. I’ve had numerous bad experiences with Valentines Day, and I know others have as well.
Love isn’t measurable. No one is in different degrees of love with someone else. It happens and there’s no explanation for it.
Not only does it happen, it happens at random. Sometimes it requires a great deal of patience, other times it’s just being in the right place at the right time.
As much as I feel like packing it in most days, I don’t. I have an incessant hope that I’m going to walk around a corner and bump into the right person one day figuratively or literally.
It may not happen before this Valentines Day, and it may not happen in the next five. I’m in a boat with those of you singles out there that will probably spend this Saturday evening hugging their pillow and Ben and Jerry’s.
It’s not important that it happens now. What’s important is that you prepare for it if that’s what you’re looking for in life
I often wake up asking myself ‘Why do I want to try?’ Then I’m reminded of the end of that quote.
“Because love is the best thing we do.”