tragedy

George Bernard Shaw once wrote ‘There are two great tragedies in life: One is to lose your heart’s desire and the other is to gain it.’

What is it to love? And to be loved? In a time where marriages crumble faster than landslides and divorce is becoming a normal occurrence, what is it to give your heart to someone? Is gaining your heart’s desire accompanied by losing it?

I have been a firm believer in the notion that the best part of a relationship is the first few weeks - where you contemplate and battle within your mind of your interest’s interest in you. Where you make that extra effort to say the right thing or look the right way. Where you make that effort to ensure the other person knows how interested you are in them and how alluring they are to you. And when you gain your heart’s desire, you treasure it. For a while.

I feel that maybe 70 or 80 years ago, people had it easier. A love was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You are born once, you live once, you love once and you die once. The advent of technology, increased awareness of freedom of choice, increased awareness of rights, and of course the increasing equality of genders have changed that world to what we live in now. Where we pass from relationship to relationship, failing to recognise the importance of them simply because we know that there is another coming along when this ends.

This is the reason why we cheat, we take for granted, we hurt and we complain. We have this huge array of choice. There are 6 billion people in this world, so what makes you so special? Well, I say I’m special because I’m me. And you are special because you are you. There’s not a single person out there that’s JUST like us. And doesn’t this give us the right to be treated as special. To be cared for and loved.

So why do I stay in a relationship where I’m told that ‘I don’t want to make the extra effort with you because we might not have a future’. I have a right to a relationship where I’m treated well. So why do I stay? Because maybe the only thing harder than being in a relationship like this is being alone. To deal with that hurt in your heart, to wake up each morning and KNOW its over, surely, it has to be better to wake up each morning and think ‘oh its another day where I’m ignored.’ Maybe my weakness lies in that I have been searching for a relationship - subconsciously at that - for so long that I’ve made so many mistakes and I don’t want to go back into that world. I don’t want to look anymore. And if I walk away, I know I walk away hoping that he will come after me - but deep inside me I know there will be no-one chasing after me begging me to stay. Its just a matter of getting strong enough to be able to deal with that.
So Mr. Shaw’s words ring truer in this day and age, where gaining your heart’s desire is followed by losing it. And yet we go through this pain. And we search again. Maybe it’s the instinct that there is something greater out there for us.

Lets believe that.

For it’ll give us all hope.

And what is hope but the love of life.