Ryan ChartrandIt’s graduation season again.
Hats off to all our Poly graduates – congratulations on making it through your collegiate experience in one piece (barely held together by duct tape and string, but for the most part, in one piece). Good luck for whatever lies ahead.
LIFE, namely.
Now you begin a new journey – the search for the perfect career that perfectly fits your interests and provides the perfect amount of money to pay off all those loans on top of the perfect rate of rent for a perfect apartment in a perfectly situated location.
Good luck with that.
As for the rest of us – who are still (safely) a year or two (or three or four) away from leaving this marvelous institution – we may think graduation is still just a twinkle in our eyes.
Au contraire, mes amis. We’ll be donning the regalia of accomplishment soon enough. As we stride proudly across the stage (or lawn, or room), the analytical minds our professors have bred in us will profoundly ponder:
“Who started the cap-and-gown fashion statement anyway? I’ll Wiki it when I get home.”
And then it hits you! The search for meaning, for purpose in life, is over! What would we ever do without Google and Wikipedia?
Of course I jest. Though you get 63,300,000 hits from a “meaning of life” search on the Google engine and an exhaustive eight-page article on Wiki, it looks like we’ve still got some non-Internet-assisted searching to do.
Not only will we be searching for the perfect career, the perfect place to live, and the perfect lifestyle; all the while, we’ll be searching for the perfect relationship, too.
Good luck with THAT.
“Perfection”: an abstract concept undoubtedly, but one that we are taught to grasp early. Growing up, there was always that one “perfect” friend or sibling you grappled with. Or perhaps you were the “perfect” one, and had to grapple with maintaining the crown.
Academically, perfectionism was one of the qualities that got many of us into this university in the first place. Racking up the straight As wasn’t enough; we felt the pressure to go above and beyond in and outside of the classroom.
Perhaps, as time progresses, the propensity to be perfect fades a little. Eventually we learn the impracticality and unfeasibility of doing everything just right all the time. We come to understand that asking for perfection 24/7 is a tall order.
But, to some extent, many of us still vaguely feel the remnants of that pressure today. Even if we’ve accepted that we can’t do everything perfectly, somehow we still demand perfection from other areas of our lives.
We are all searching for the perfect relationship.
We’re well-acquainted with the meaning of the adjective, but the idea of the “perfect relationship” is a great deal more complicated.
Does it exist in the real world, as more than just an idea? Is it something that can even be attained?
Trendy cynicism says no. Since people will never be perfect, their relationships can’t be, either. We’re all doomed to half-satisfying, mediocre relationships and all we can really do is make the best of the little we’ve got.
Trendy positive psychology self-help books say yes. Everyone has self-actualizing potential within themselves to get exactly what they want; all that’s needed is the motivation and the desire to go get it and make it all happen.
Neither trend provides us with an answer. But it wouldn’t matter even if one of them did. Regardless of the answer, we will go on trying to figure out what a perfect relationship is, and we will go on trying to find one for ourselves.
Good luck with that.
Not to burst your romantic bubble – but it’s time to burst your romantic bubble. “The perfect relationship” may not exist.
Rather, perhaps a “perfect” relationship may exist.
Who can say what constitutes “the perfect relationship”? Let’s leave the definition to the talking heads and so-called relationship experts (who, by the way, seem to come by those titles without any formal training or certification whatsoever).
If you’re looking for one or you’ve found the one, if you’re in a less-than-perfect one or one that’s too perfect, if you want one with all your heart or stopped wanting because you’ve wanted one so much, the reality really isn’t so complicated:
The closest to “perfect” we’re ever going to be able to achieve or find or create is the acceptance that nothing will ever be exactly perfect.
The good news is, even things that aren’t perfect can still be pretty damn wonderful.
What does that mean for relationships? It means that, no matter where you stand, there will always be more to learn about relationships. And that means there will always be more ways to find someone special, and to make your relationship better with that special someone.
At the risk of sounding like a graduation speech, I’d like to leave you, gentle reader, with a sentiment or two:
These columns and commentaries have been a pleasure to share with you. I may have a few years left to spend here at Poly, but in a way, I feel like I’m graduating. I’ve learned a lot, taken some new perspectives, and I hope you have, too.
In your lives and in your relationships: good luck.
Sarah Carbonel is an English and psychology junior and Mustang Daily dating columnist.