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Then there's the other other thing you get from spirit—meanings. Meanings give your life and what happens in it a sense of significance or importance. Some people don't need meanings. To them, meanings feel unnecessary, or even undesirable in an opiate-of-the-masses kind of way. Things are totally random, and that's fine with them. Not me. I like it when things mean something. For example, in my world, when you sat down next to me at the DMV, it was because there was something trying to happen in my life and it needed you to get the ball rolling. Suddenly you were there for a reason. And that reason is part of what we are going to spend our relationship working on. It might even keep us together somehow.

That's because when you put meaning on something random, it becomes a story, and as you know by now, I love stories. I believe every good relationship needs one. As I said earlier, stories are how human beings organize their experience. This is super important when it comes to relationships. Without a story, it can be a lot harder to know why you're bothering to put up with some guy's bullshit—I don't mean abusive bullshit, just normal, everyday bullshit—and I can be pretty sure that sometime in the next forty-five years of marriage you are going to be asking yourself why you are putting up with this guy's bullshit.

The other thing about meanings is that you're probably making them whether you want to or not. Very few people believe everything is random. If you really press most people, even the hardcore atheist Philosophy majors, they'll usually admit that at least once something happened in their lives that made them feel like there's a bigger force going on in life—something beyond what can be perceived with the five senses, maybe even beyond what be measured with the most powerful microscope, telescope, or math formula. Not everything can be explained, least of all relationships.

Which is why—between love, transformation, and meanings—developing a sense of the spiritual is the final piece of the puzzle toward becoming ready for a relationship.

In the end, there really is no perfect person out there. What is out there is someone you are going to walk a path with, someone who will walk a path with you. How will you know who that someone is? What should that someone be like? What if that someone has flaws, big ones, that make you scared to commit? (You can be sure that this will be the case. After all, you're not perfect, right? So he or she won't be, either.) Why would you risk giving up your great rent-controlled apartment for an ordinary guy who will not only see all your flaws but also have the power to leave you? None of it makes sense. Unless you decide to make it about something way bigger than diamond rings and wedding dresses.

Unless you decide to make it something spiritual.