Being Single and Happy

Most young girls have read the stories, watched the Disney movies and talked to their girlfriends about this sweet, wonderful, mythological creature: the Knight in Shining Armor. This Knight was to be brave, intelligent, earnest and deeply sensitive. He would dash in on a powerful steed and rescue his one and only love from a life of a boring, provincial hausfrau and into a life filled with romance, exhilaration and sweet dreams. According to Wikipedia (see link below), the knight-errant is most likely the person this Knight in Shining Armor ideology was built around. The knight-errant would conduct noble deeds in the name of his lady in order to prove himself ready for knighthood. The knights described were exciting, high-minded individuals, and, for the most part, fictionalized characters.

Even as women got older and knew this image to be a false one, still the hope survived: that each of us, some day, would meet the man of our dreams. And he would dash in driving a brand new Mercedes and rescue us from a life of clubbin' and hanging out to take our rightful places as wife of a brilliantly handsome CEO, becoming part of the jet set and watching our mutual monies grow by leaps and bounds in the bank.

Why do women (we) have such dreams? Because it's so hard to live with the reality that, for most of us, our lives will be perfectly happy, but probably not perfectly romantic? That it is much more likely that our future spouses would be mechanics, junior executives or salesmen that a Fortune 500 CEO? Happiness is where you make it, and the sooner we understand that life does not have to be a magical, perfect fairy tale to be good, the better off we will all be.

Here's my advice to all of you who are still searching for your Knight in Shining Armor: Rescue Yourself! Be there for yourself, take your life out of the humdrum into the extraordinary and become a Fortune 500 CEO yourself (heck, you can even become a Fortune 100 CEO if you set your mind to it!) I am a firm believer, as a woman, in making your own money, buying your own toys and finding your own sense of personal satisfaction with (or especially) without the involvement of a man. I am all for marriage, love, children and family, but I am even more for the benefits of becoming a fully evolved, self-sufficient person before becoming the weaker half of a two-some.

Whatever you need, you can provide for yourself. You know what makes you most happy, so you can build your own happiness. You know the career that calls to you, so you can choose your own college courses (or pick the right business to start) through hard work and research. You know what it takes to lose weight, make friends, hold down a job, buy a house, make more money or even run for political office, so do it. A good marriage can enhance your life, but it should not be your life.

Build your own life. Rescue yourself. Be your own Knight in Shining Armor. And how much happier you will be...

I'd love to hear what you think (especially opposing opinions)!