Why You Need To Set Aside Your Ego To Keep The One You Love

I’m happy to say that I was once incredibly in love. I met an amazing girl, and did my best to make things work. Or at least, my ego tells me I did what was my best at the time.
You see, the older you get, the more you realize that what you thought was your best, what you thought was your maximum, really wasn’t at all.
However, this is only something you realize in time. You do things. You make mistakes. You misunderstand.
You allow your ego to get the best of you. And inevitably, you mess it all up. I did. Billions before have done it. Billions after me will likely do it as well. But I hope not…
You can realize what it is that you have before it’s gone. Most of us simply don’t; we choose not to. The majority of us need to make mistakes for ourselves. We need to learn by getting cut and bruised.
We have to try, stumble, fail, and pick ourselves up again. In a way, we all learn from mistakes. Some of us, thankfully, are smart enough to learn from the mistakes of others.
Do yourself a favor and be smart enough to learn from mine. Learn to appreciate the woman in your life, because eventually — one way or another — she will be gone. Life has a beginning and an end.
It’s how you write the story in between that makes all the difference. And if you want a story filled with love, you’re going to need to set your ego aside.

You don’t know how good she is to you, until she’s no longer by your side.

She was always there, filling in the gaps and holding everything together, but my need for independence pushed her away. The grass is always greener, isn’t it?
I’m not sure if it’s the way the sun shines on the blades, or our stupidity, but your lawn never looks as good as your neighbor’s.
Being human almost always means being unsatisfied. We’re just so used to it. Everything in our lives is tentative, so we have difficulty seeing the value of those closest to us. Until they’re gone.
Once we no longer have it good, we realize how good we once had it.

You don’t know how big a part of your life she is, until she leaves a hole in her place.

We get used to having people around — so used to it that we almost forget that they’re even there; I know I did. It’s a hell of a shock when we realize that the woman we’ve been neglecting was the best thing that ever happened to us.
It’s not a shock that she walked out; it’s a shock realizing that we didn’t realize what he meant to us while we still had a chance at making it work.
The way we do things — like how we fold our laundry, how we organize our clothes, how we go about solving problems — have changed because she came into our life. And although she’s gone, we still do those things.
We can’t help but do them, because they’ve become a part of who we are.

You don’t know how much you need her, until you can’t have her.

I had this incredibly dumb notion, that love was all about the chase. When I stopped having to chase her, because I thought I had her, I ended up chasing her away.
We all want what we can’t have. That goes for every single person on this planet. It’s a natural instinct of sorts.
However, these sorts of wants are moderate. It’s when you can’t have what you already want, when the need to have is overwhelming. The intensity is incomparable. Ever wonder how it’s possible that love can drive one man? Well, that’s how it begins.

You don’t know she means the world to you, until your world loses meaning.

I had difficulty getting up in the morning… Finding a reason to do… anything, became a challenge. The world lost its color, and darkened. My perception — my reality — became altered.
When you lose someone you truly love, the world you once knew — the world the two of you created together — crumbles. You lose meaning. You lose purpose.
You lose an understanding of how the world works, because the way you thought it worked turned out to be wrong.
Now you have no choice but to find a way to set your ego aside, realign your thoughts, and begin to rebuild your world.

You don’t know how special what you two had was, until your ego has destroyed it.

I still think back and wonder, “What if I didn’t screw it all up? What if I found a way to keep what we had alive?”
What we had was special — and to be quite honest, I don’t see myself finding that again in this lifetime. But I’ll find someone new. You will too. It’ll be different, but it will be amazing in its own way. I don’t doubt that and you shouldn’t either.
Now, accept that fact and move on with your life. It’s very important to understand when your ego is the reason that things didn’t work out.
However, once you accept your mistakes, and promise yourself to never allow yourself to make those same mistakes again, it’s time to let go.
You can’t hold onto this pain forever — and the longer you do, the more damage it does. You’ll meet someone when the time is right. But until then, you have to focus on the only thing you have complete control over: you.
Work on yourself. Get the right information and choose to apply it to your life. Become better. Become wiser.
Become positive and keep dreaming big. You have it in you to be amazing. And I promise you, once you feel like you’re finally in your own skin, you’ll find the one. Learn, practice, persevere — it’s the only way.