Do you remember the movie Jerry Maquire, starring Tom Cruise as Jerry and Renee Zellweger as Dorothy Boyd? When Jerry realizes he is in love with Dorothy, he says to her, “You complete me.”[1]
Now that I am divorced, after almost 24 years of marriage, I have come to the realization that no one is going to complete me. I must complete myself.
Don’t get me wrong; I believe in love. But many movies give us the message that a knight in shining armor will one day find us and take care of us forever. We will have found Mr. Right, the one who will complete us and make us happy.
For a few people, that message may be true. But for most of us, it’s absolute garbage. We are not to look for someone outside of ourselves to complete us. We already know who that person is, just look in the mirror and you will find the one.
We are the ones. No man is going to complete us.
I think the search for an external person to complete us is the reason so many relationships fail. When we do find the one who we are sure will complete us, we are shocked when he fails to make us happy. It’s because he can’t. Half a man will not make us happy because he is looking for someone to make him happy. Neither of us can make the other happy. We each have to do it for ourselves.
Years ago, I went to a wedding, and the bride and groom said to each other, “I’ve been walking around as a half a person, and now I’ve found my other half. You are my soulmate. You complete me.”
They then tied a rope around each other as a symbolic gesture that they were one.
Fast forward a few years. The marriage had a sad ending when the man cheated with his wife’s best friend. Now she was back to being half a person because her soul mate had left her.
Before you go into a relationship, make sure you know that you are the one, so that when you meet that special person, you complement each other. Hopefully, that man will have been working on himself. If there is chemistry between you, your relationship will bring out the best in each of you.
A beautiful garden doesn’t just happen. We have to water it, weed it, and nurture it. If we stopped taking care of it, weeds would overrun it. That beautiful garden is our life. So we pluck out the weeds and plant pretty flowers in their place.
Then how do we cultivate this beautiful garden? It’s all about self-improvement.
1. We put God first and ask him to guide our path.
2. We stop looking for something outside of ourselves to complete us.
3. We remember that no one can love us until we love ourselves.
4. We’re kind to others so that no one can say their day was worse because of us.
5. We read motivational books to remind ourselves that we are not alone. They assure us that others have gone through struggles and come out on the other side as better versions of themselves. Such books help us to learn from others’ mistakes.
6. We educate ourselves. Do we need to go back to school? Do we need to attend a conference to be inspired by others who are successful?
7. We develop healthy bodies through exercise. Fitness gives us confidence, and confidence is sexy. When we are around confident people, they inspire us to be confident also.
8. We develop healthy, positive minds. When we see the glass as half full, we realize our lives, while never perfect, are quite good. When we fall or fail, we accept that our mistakes are stepping stones to success. So we forgive ourselves, get up, and keep going, always striving to become better persons.
9. We find a consuming hobby. We find out what we love to do, and we do it. When we find our passion, we know it, because time stands still when we do what we love to do.
10. We take time to find out who we are and to evaluate our lives. If we don’t know who we are, how will we find out what we want out of life? So we don’t rush into a new relationship until that’s settled.
11. We surround ourselves with positive people so that when we fall, they can help us up.
Gail Sheehy once said, “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. And if we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.”
If we are now in our 30s, 40s or 50s, and we’re the same persons we were when we were in our twenties, something is wrong. It means we haven’t grown or learned. When we grow and learn from our mistakes, we become smarter people.
Let’s become 2.0 versions of ourselves! We need to stop looking for someone to complete us and work on ourselves because that will determine how great we’re going to be. We never stop improving. We are the one!
1. Myextension2002. You Complete Me – YouTube. 2002; Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpWAlvWNZj0.
