Soul Mates

I have been thinking about soul mates off and on for several months now, and I'm not sure what to think.

Believing in them is not really the cool thing to do. Now, I try not to let how cool an idea is influence me too much as to whether I agree with it. But the idea that there is one right person for everybody and that if you miss them, you're sunk just does not ring true to me. Because someone is sure to make a mistake and end up throwing things off for who knows how many other people.

John Bytheway wrote a book about dating and looking for an eternal companion. And one of the things he said was that sometimes you pray about someone and get a go-ahead answer, but then you mess things up and have to move on. Part of me understands and agrees with this, that people and situations change. But another part of me goes along with something I heard elsewhere, that if something was right before, it's not going to just change. And I believe that no relationship is so far gone that it can't be fixed if you put enough effort into it. Some relationships might not be worth that effort. But if it was a worthwhile relationship before and neither of you have gone off the deep end, I can't see it being anything but worthwhile now. Of course, there is always the possibility that you were told to go for it to teach you something, or because you had to go down that path to see for yourself that it wasn't right.

I mentioned the Spencer W. Kimball quote about how soul mates aren't real and almost any two righteous people can make a happy life together in an earlier post. But there definitely are some people that go better together than others. And if I would be better with Jake than with Jack, and better with Jerry than with Jake, and so on, how many people would be at the top? Could it be that Jordan is the person who I would fit best with, or is he tied with Justin, Josh, and Jed? If I messed things up with Jordan, I know I could find someone else to be happy with. And things will all work out in the eternities.

But off the top of my head, I can think of four different stories where someone was impressed that they would marry a certain person, then later did. One is a young couple in their twenties, one is in my parents' generation, one in my grandparents' generation, and one my great-grandparents. All have been happy so far. And if they got these impressions, then that suggests to me that maybe in some cases, there is a specific person you should be with.

Keeping Holidays

As I've stated before, I really like Valentine's Day as a day to appreciate everybody you love- friends and family included. And I hate it when anybody calls it Singles Awareness Day.

Now, Singles Awareness Day is not the only complaint I've heard about the holiday. Like most other holidays, sometimes people complain about the commercialization. And I think some guys spend more than they really need to. The point is not the money- the point is to show that you care. And I'll leave it at that for now.

The other objection is that you should be aware of the people you care about always, and that it shouldn't take a special day to show that you care. And that is true. But the same can be said about Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving and pretty much every other holiday out there. Except Halloween, since it's pretty much meaningless these days to most people I know. And the way I look at it, human nature being what it is, we do tend to forget about these things without occasional reminders. Most of the time, we get some just living our lives. But I don't think it hurts anything to have a special day or season of reminder unless we start to think that we can only acknowledge love on Valentine's Day and our Veterans on Veterans' Day. And I always love an excuse to celebrate. So I say keep the holiday.