"Lucky to be me"
Updated: Apr 19
Leonard Bernstein wrote "Lucky to be me". It shared the sentiment of contentment at having met someone special. I particularly like the Bill Evans and Monica Zetterlund recording. But it's a dangerous approach to have someone "make you whole". You need to be whole and then meet someone else who is also whole. That way there's less scope for co-dependency.
Just like TV's fictional Doctor Who, who has been through many manifestations, and for example David Bowie, the late pop musician, who also did the same, I think it is only natural and sensible, that we go through versions of ourself, until we find one that generates the least friction with other people, whilst allowing us to engage in what is meaningful to us, and practically speaking, to function financially and/or occupationally, with a happy outlook on life.
For some people, their earlier lives may have been Hell on Earth. The fact that each one of those steps heads towards a version demonstrating "a happy outlook on life", suggests they were once less happy. But that's not totally accurate, because the goals of a 20-year-old may be different to those of a 30, 40 or 50-year-old, for example. However, I assert that Hell is definitely on Earth, and the longer your stay there, the wider your eyes ultimately become; the more balanced you are, and crucially then, the less fooled you are that making a compromise should be frowned upon. That's capitalist thinking, not human being reasoning. They instil comparisons and competition, because that helps to fuel the national engine, which ultimately competes with other nations engines too, with no end to it all. For many, that widespread and endlessly propagating model, can be hard to rise above. Adages such as "when in Roman do as the Romans", "if you can't beat them, join them", and sadly, "I'm alright Jack", may all relate, and are broadly what the system encourages.
Three routes out of this position may be -
1) A superior education: private school, or grammar school, followed by Oxbridge or another prestigious university.
2) Religious beliefs: you may distance yourself from everything worldly, by recognising the existence of a higher power.
3) My experience is that having suffered plenty enough, on account of the world and other misfortunes, you choose happiness, which has always been under your nose. Find it. Take it...
Godspeed.