It’s easy to feel lonely while being single. It’s easy to feel like being single isn’t a choice, too. But I have a secret: being single can be absolutely amazing. In fact, there are plenty of ways to take advantage of being single. But before we go down that path, let’s start at the beginning. I’m going to walk you through exactly why I came to the conclusion that being single is empowering. Here is how you find empowerment in being single:
The other day I had an interesting conversation with some friends about free will.
We were sipping rosé in a trendy east side wine bar and enjoying our lazy Sunday. Honestly I’m like 99% sure you can’t gossip about pop culture east of Vermont Avenue, so our only option was to start philosophizing about life and all its mysteries. When in Rome!
It went a little something like this: What does it mean to have free will? How does it manifest in our lives? What does it mean to not have free will? Are most things in life pre-determined? Are we just reacting to stimuli subconsciously? Or are we actively making decisions and propelling ourselves along?
(boring boring boring boring boring)
To my delight things got a little…excited, and we maybe, or definitely, disrupted a few patrons’ scrabble games. It ended up being split right down the middle – team free will vs. team pre-determined, but what we all agreed on is how important it was to believe that we have free will. Without the belief, the world would be chaos.
It should be no surprise that I cheered exuberantly for team free will. I think we make decisions every day that steer our lives forwards or backwards. I hope we aren’t simply responding to external stimuli or going through the motions on a daily basis because the ink is already dry. (Poor Hodor!)
Good decisions reap good luck. Or at least that’s how I see it. I guess without that belief, I wouldn’t be very good at my job.
This revelation was quickly followed by a session I had with one of my longtime clients (don’t worry, she knows I’m writing about her!). I don’t typically get philosophical in sessions, that’s not really my personality, but I do like challenging stereotypes and stretching my perspective to see situations differently.
Without going into crazy detail – this particular client is special. Very special. And she’s just now coming to terms with it. Many men in her life have led her to believe otherwise for far too long. So, a year and a half after one of the world’s worst relationships had FINALLY ended, she got her justice.
Yes, it was the form of a text message. Yes, it was eighteen months too late. Yes, it didn’t change the fact that he was still a moron. But still! She finally got to read the long awaited apology she deserved, and it came with way more empathy, understanding, and regret than I could have ever hoped for. It was a victorious moment.
But something was still irking her. Sure, she was totally revamping her life and finally chasing after what SHE wanted (trust me, it’s not an easy transition!). But she still felt like she was falling short in some way.
Then it dawned on her. A light bulb moment. She felt like because she wasn’t in a relationship, her journey wasn’t complete. She hadn’t done enough, pushed enough, or moved forward enough to truly feel like she had overcome her passive past.
I understood why she felt this way, I just didn’t agree that her relationship status had anything to do with her transformation. But how could I explain that to her? What was the underlying reason she wasn’t in a relationship that she should be proud of?
Then, it dawned on me. It was my turn to have a light bulb moment: free will. Being single is a choice! Being single is an empowering choice!
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Before anyone gets offended, this isn’t a tirade about how single women are undesirable or that there must be something wrong with them. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve actually only met a few women in my life who I truly believe are single NOT by choice. And they happened to be really, really mean. Like, really mean. Mean people don’t make good life partners, so I figured that was the reason why. But for the other hundreds of single women I have met in the last few years, I have always assumed it was a choice. And I think I’m right.
For every woman out there