The statues do have clay feet

I’m old enough by now to know that life isn’t always what you want it to be. In fact, most times it’s downright the opposite of what you want or expect.

Just because I’m old enough, however, it doesn’t mean I’m always smart enough to tell the difference between a vain hope and a realistic possibility. Sometimes our hearts blind us to what our eyes are really seeing… especially when it comes to the things we’ve been wanting for a long, long time.

I once fell in love with this girl, a long time ago, whom I thought was absolutely perfect. She was really smart, cute and interesting. She had a zest for life that was downright infectious, and a keen desire to learn new things and experience things few people would consider. She could speak four languages, sail a yacht, paint, shape pottery and write poetry. She was, in my mind, everything I ever wanted in a woman.

I was in love with her for three long years, until she finally agreed to be my girlfriend.

Our relationship lasted all of two weeks.

What I found out, after we got together, was that the woman I felt I fell in love with was not actually the woman I got. Sure, she was all the things I mentioned, but she was also cold, selfish, vain and mean-spirited. She didn’t think twice about making fun of other people. She even told me she didn’t regret doing bad things to me (back when I was still courting her) because I "asked for it." She was not kind to hired help, and to waiters in restaurants. Heck, she even had lousy taste in perfume.

It was then that I realized that the biggest problem we face in running after someone, or even something, isn’t that we may not get what we want. On the contrary, the biggest problem is that we won’t like it when we get it.

You see, we often put what we love on a pedestal. We think that what we want is the greatest thing on earth, and that, if we could only just reach it, we would be happy beyond measure. The jarring truth is that our expectations and our dreams are often far beyond the reach of reality, and what we end up wanting isn’t what we really see, but what we really want to see. The more we end up wanting something, the more we seem willing to blind ourselves to the truth of its imperfections. Sure the girl is beautiful… but is she a good person? Sure that car is fast… but does it break down easily? Sure money can buy a lot of things… but will it ever buy satisfaction?

Many times in my life I’ve convinced myself that I can live with whatever imperfections my "statues" have, while at the same time dreaming of them as perfect as they can be. It’s just not a realistic way to live, and I’ve paid for that folly many times with bitter disappointment. I’ve often realized that the whole time I kept wanting what I dreamed of, what was really out there wasn’t really worth it.

The key is to understand that every full moon has a dark side, that every great thing often has an equally great flaw, and that wanting something should also include wanting ALL of that thing, warts and all. You can’t expect your dreams to be fulfilled by something perfect. Because if you want them fulfilled in the real world, you have to take real things… and these things are never perfect.

I’ve turned the corner on my life in Thailand. A lot of it has been pleasant, but some of the dreams I’d nurtured for so long didn’t really turn out the way I had planned them to. I guess it’s tough to expect someone or something to be worthy of your dreams. After all, in dreams, we have no limitations, no boundaries to hold us back. What could ever live up to those? I guess the sooner I accept that, the easier it will be for me to move on.