So this is interesting..."stop looking and it'll find you." is advice I've heard from so many people, dear friends, spiritual teachers I know and respect.
And yet, I find it virtually impossible to willfully cause myself to "stop looking."
And especially when I'm stop looking in order to find something.
I can't pretend that I'm not.
And I can't stop trying to find something.
I will add - and this is a little more personal info than I wanted to share - but I've bared so much personal information already, so what the heck, is I say this as someone who has spent over six months living in a zen monastery practicing non-attachment, among other spiritual and psychological exercises.
So how do you stop looking?
Is that even possible?
Or does it just happen?
> So how do you stop looking? Is that even possible? Or does it just happen?
So, just to put it in perspective, I did this at ~30 years old. My wife is a few years older than me. Instead of trying to find a partner, boyfriend, or whatever, go looking for a single friend. IOW, change what you're looking for.
1. It's a lot easier to find friends than potential life partners.
2. Expanding your network increases the odds of finding potential life partners.
3. IME, turning a budding friendship into a relationship is relatively easy if both people are willing. Also, if either one isn't willing, it won't really harm the friendship because it is so new.
As an adult, making new friends is a bit harder than when we're younger. Hit up meetup.com and just start going to random things that might be interesting to you. Or ask your existing friends to invite you on random outings they have with their friends (you've probably got a "gateway friend"[1] that has lots of friends that don't overlap with your friends) and just start meeting people with the sole goal of making new friends.
Your secondary goal is to find a life partner, but don't make it your primary one. Eventually, you just start making friends everywhere you go (it took me almost a year), stop caring about the life partner part, and during that time I had zero relationships. At the end of that, 90% of my friends were women that I never had a physical relationship with. When I met my wife, we just sat and talked for hours, and then I knew it was different than any other friendship I'd had in the last year. We exchanged numbers and then talked for hours yet again and again. At no point was there talk of a relationship or anything more, in fact, we weren't officially dating until about ~2 months after we met, but we were inseparable after ~3 weeks.
There were a ton of failures along the way though, especially near the beginning. Some truly cringe-worthy moments that I'll take to the grave. But it was worth it, in the end.
And yet, I find it virtually impossible to willfully cause myself to "stop looking."
And especially when I'm stop looking in order to find something. I can't pretend that I'm not. And I can't stop trying to find something.
I will add - and this is a little more personal info than I wanted to share - but I've bared so much personal information already, so what the heck, is I say this as someone who has spent over six months living in a zen monastery practicing non-attachment, among other spiritual and psychological exercises.
So how do you stop looking? Is that even possible? Or does it just happen?
Feels like an elephant.