| By :
Ben Mester
In my experience as a studier of philosophy and poetry, I have come across a wide variety of great quotes to live by. My most favorite always seem to come from a very long time ago in the ancient world. I just love seeing the way people of old viewed the world, the romantic thoughts they had about the largely undiscovered world and humanity's role in it. This quote to live by is one of the foundational sayings that got me thinking as a younger man about romantic thoughts and what kind of man I ought to be. This quote is from Rumi, an ancient Persian poet and philosopher. "Your task is not to seek love, but merely to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." Rumi I love this picture of romance, of human beings doing something to better themselves instead of just sitting around waiting for someone to drop out of the sky and into their lives. When I was younger, I was confronted with a question: "Should I spend my time finding the right person, or spend my time becoming the right person?" Everyone wants to find love, but most people spend all their time searching for the right person without ever giving much thought to becoming the right person for someone else. When I was younger, I spent so much time looking for that perfect someone. But then I read quotes like this one, and they made me wonder, what kind of man would that perfect someone want to fall in love with? Should I be spending all my time looking for her, or should I be spending more of my time becoming the kind of man that a girl like that could really fall in love with? I chose the latter, to be a romantic, and I set out to remove the barriers to love that I had built within myself. Of all the romantic quotes to live by I've come across, this one has been the most powerful. It motivated the romantic thoughts and ideals that make me the man I am today. I think that each of us has to make this choice at one point or another, or perhaps we choose it subconsciously everyday by how we live our lives. It's fascinating to think that natural barriers to love are even real at all, that many of us carry them unknowingly. As a society, I think that Hollywood teaches us that once we find that perfect someone, all the barriers and walls will melt away, that we'll be perfectly happy with them and love them forever. But is that really how it is? Is each of us not responsible in part to become a better person than they are today? In reality, it must be something of a mix of the two, of finding the right person and becoming the right person. For my own part, the only thing that I can control is who I am and who I'm becoming. And I've realized more and more that who I am still has many barriers to lasting love built within him. But that's ok. I'll get there someday. I hope you do too.
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