My friend sent me this...

A friend sent me this. She got this from Philippine Star and it's kinda true. She knows we understand and agree to this...


Alone and aliveNEW BEGINNINGS By Büm D. Tenorio, Jr. Sunday, June 10, 2007

Gone are the days when single people hurry up to take the plunge and splash the world with their new status: married. Many young people now enjoy their youth. They enjoy it a lot that even if they reach their 30s, they seem to be unmindful of the ticking of the marital clock. (Wait till you meet ladies who are way past their 30s and yet not bothered by their ticking biological time clock.) Not everyone is in a rush to sprint past the finish line of being unattached, to some extent being uncommitted. Single-blessedness rules. In many cases, it's more of a rule rather than an exemption.
Not that there's a scarcity of compatible couples. Compatibility figures in as much as the relationship is concerned but to bring it to the level of exchanging "I do's" is all together another ball game. And in this ball game, the sweethearts are not only the players but also the referees of their own desires. So, even if they are of ripe age to get married, they just dribble around and delay the game before it leads them to the altar.
But love is not a game. Really, no one says it so. But getting married, for many, is not the answer. Not yet. Especially for those who want to remain single and enjoy its many blessings.
Such selfishness, you say. But it's a choice, we, members of the single society, say.
Economics figures in. When you're in love, you think in numbers, too. Because to raise a family entails financial obligations, many single people - of course those who are into amorous relationships - think twice before they take the bait of sharing one life, one love together. I may be single but I am not alien to the fact that many marriages collapse because of empty pocket and growling stomach. This is a sad reality considering that it is in the vows that "for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse" couple must stick together. But love alone will not suffice. There should be at least food on the table. So, the many single people now who feel they are not yet ready for the altar date do not push the issue. They work and save and spend. The cycle continues. The wedding bells can wait. If ever they will ring at all.
The yearning for a prolonged freedom and independence also contributes why many remain single. These people enjoy being unattached to the max. Psychiatrists call them simply as not the marrying type.
* * *
Many times I have been asked whether I am married or not. The 35-year-old in me always has this reply: "I am very much single but happily engaged... to myself."
This repartee surely elicits laughter from me and the people who ask me. My laughter, however, fades with this follow up question: "Hindi ka ba natatakot na tatanda kang mag-isa (Are you not afraid that you will grow old alone)?"
No. And that's what I always answer. Not because it is convenient for me to say "No" but because I sincerely believe in my conviction that I am not afraid to be alone.
It's not lonely to be alone.
What's with the word "alone" that makes people's mind meander to a world mantled by dark and dreary mood? Why does being alone always have to be equated with isolation, solitary confinement, feelings that are akin to being despondent and disconsolate?
I repeat, risking myself to sound like a broken record, it's not lonely to be alone.
People who say it's lonely to be alone surely have not yet experienced how to be fully happy. They have, perhaps, never realized yet that being single does not necessarily mean being empty. It is having a relationship with the self. Because you are well attuned to yourself, you know your needs. Those who do not have a healthy relationship with the self will always find the faults of the world instead of appreciating its many charms.
To be alone means to tread the path to self-realization, to nurture the road to enlightenment, to traverse the discovery of self-actualization. It is perhaps because of these that the word single-blessedness came into existence.
To be single and alone also means to be alive. It does not connote that the highway to the happily-ever-after is a far-fetched idea. The concept of "he" or "she," as oppose to "they," live(s) happily ever after is a congruent realization for someone whose fairy tale land is not peopled by any character but himself or herself only. Loving yourself to wholeness can be achieved even if you're alone. Lest you forget, you owe it to yourself to create your own happiness.
Single and alone? Fret not. Feel free to love yourself.