People Will Change; Things will End

People fall in love all the time. That’s not going to change anytime soon. Another thing that doesn’t change is when people do fall in love, they tend to think (or hope) that it will last forever. Let’s think about this for a moment. Forever? Really? I mean, what are the odds of that translating itself into reality?

Are we the same person we were a year ago? Heck, are we even the same person we were thirty days ago? If we were brutally honest with ourselves, we’d know that we’ve changed in some way. These changes might be superficial, or they might even be ones that are more fundamental in nature. Regardless, change has taken place. What’s more, change will continue to happen.

It gets even scarier. If we are changing all the time, it stands to reason that our partners are also constantly changing, too. Think about that for a minute. With the passing of every minute both sides of the equation are changing. It follows that in this corner of the space-time continuum we are occupying at the moment, neither we nor our partners are the same people anymore. He is no longer the person she fell in love with - and neither is she. Seen from this perspective it is much easier to understand why couples so often moan and ask the question, “Where has the love gone?” The sad fact is they have both become different people – most of the time, through no fault of their own.

Sometimes the changes the partners undergo are small and don’t really impact the relationship. These are the lucky few. Luckier even are those that experience changes that actually bring them closer. The question now becomes, are we one of the lucky few who fall into either one of these categories? Do we seriously entertain the idea that we are one of these lucky sods? I mean, seriously, what are the odds? What make us so special?

The ‘this-love-will-last-forever’ proposition doesn’t look very realistic anymore does it?

The stink is - for most people - the changes they go through, more likely than not, will drive them apart. As people change - often in ways that are more than just superficial - their relationship will, at some point, come to an end. Whether we want it to or not is pretty much immaterial. It is just a question of when and how. Fact is, everything ends. Let’s face it, if it lives, it will someday die; if it exists, it will someday crumble. This is just the way the universe works – it’s nothing personal.

So, if everybody changes and everything ends, why should we even bother at all? There’s not much point in loving someone, is there? On the flip-side, spending our entire lives trying to find that one true love we deserve is also pretty much a dumbass thing to do, right?

Not exactly.

Despite the doom and gloom that the statistics point to, and despite that we will crash and burn at some point, falling in love is the most beautiful thing that can happen to us on this side of paradise. Frankly, nothing comes close.

Yes, the thrill of being the CEO a global company, one that has the power to affect the lives of millions, is pretty heady stuff. Yes, making a breakthrough in quantum physics will win us the Nobel Prize and ensure our place in history. Yes, writing the best novel ever written will carve a place for us in the hearts of millions for generations to come. But how does all this fit into the scheme of things?

As a human beings, chances are all this means precious little as compared to the chance of finding ourselves in love with and being loved back by that special someone. This is the way we are. This is the way we will always be.

Yes, everybody changes. Yes, everything will end. However, this doesn’t mean we should never ever fall in love or that love is an exercise in futility. It just means that we have to understand (and accept) that love can never be a happily-ever-after proposition - regardless of what Hollywood or Bollywood has to say. Understanding and accepting that our time together is shorter than we think will give us the courage and the freedom to love more intensely and more completely than we’ve ever done before. If you think it is a hopeless situation, then I say you don’t deserve to be in love in the first place. After all, love is a zero sum game – it is all or nothing… all or nothing.

The tragedy is not that we have loved so deeply and so truly, but in the end still crashed and burned anyway. The real tragedy is that we never found the courage to love in the first place.

People will change; things will end. So be it.