About a week ago, yet another celebrity made public her divorce after a few weeks of marriage to a dear Minnesotan named Kris Humphries. This was not surprising because celebrities have an affinity for getting married, only to break up a few weeks, or some hours, later.
Having never really cared for celebrity news and daily lives, I was especially struck by the fact that marriage has become just “one of those things.” Bruno Mars, in his song “Marry You,” says, “It’s a beautiful night, we’re looking for something dumb to do, hey baby, I think I wanna marry you!” The song is catchy and fun to sing along to until you realize it is suggesting that marriage is no longer a sacred practice, but rather something you can do after your 2:40 in the HAB.
So, what is the big deal? People divorce all the time, do they not? I think the big deal is that marriages come from relationships and relationships are something we, as college students, often either want to be in, want to escape from or want the best of both worlds from.
I have asked many people, “What makes a good relationship?” I always get generic answers— trust, love, patience, honesty; the list goes on and on. After a certain point in my life, I stopped asking the question because I came to the simple conclusion that if you would not date yourself, you cannot expect someone else to make that type of commitment to you. Usually, if you are honest enough with yourself, you can safely say, “I would totally date myself,” or “Wow, I need to change.”
So, simply put, the greatest challenge is not whether or not we are in a relationship, but rather whether we are good enough to ourselves to be good to those people that we expect to spend the rest of their lives with us.
It is a shame that marriage has become worth so little in our communities, but I assure you, all is not lost. We do not often have to look too far to find what love looks like. It is in the friends we spend our weekends with in Sal’s, dropping our pants to “Piano Man,” and in the parents that raise us to be nothing but awesome. It is even in the professors that give us papers in abundance and tests like they are going out of fashion.
So, before you make a lifelong commitment, ask yourself, “Would I spend the rest of my life with me?” If the answer is “Hell to the no,” take time to work on yourself until the answer is “I do.”