Marriage Is Not About Finding a Perfect Person; It Is About Bravely Entering an Adventure

Hello everyone, this is CLEC James Talks, and I am James.

Today I want to talk with you about love, marriage, and how we should face this adventure in life that is both longed for and feared.

I recently received a letter from a friend in her twenties. She said that since she started following CLEC's investing content last year, she, who used to be full of anxiety about money and the future, has gradually found a direction in life.

She used to be very afraid that all she could do for a lifetime was keep working, keep repeating the same labor, unable to see a future or to know what the point of her effort was.

But once she gradually built up an understanding of investing and learned how to accumulate assets and plan for the future, she began to have confidence, and her emotions became much steadier.

She also mentioned several phrases I often say in these talks:

"I do."

"It does not matter."

"Never mind."

"Anything is fine."

These phrases have become important reminders for her when she faces her emotions and inner churn.

Whenever she starts to tie herself in knots, or feels bad, or keeps turning the same thing over and over, she reminds herself: "Never mind, anything is fine."

She hopes to keep this clear-eyed, relaxed state of mind in future.

But recently she ran into a question that money and investing cannot answer directly, namely:

"How exactly should I think about love and marriage?"

She said that growing up she has hardly ever seen a marriage that was truly happy, at ease, and of high quality.

What she has mostly seen is making do, dullness, mutual endurance, even mutual depletion. Two people live under the same roof and yet do not necessarily truly understand each other; they are nominally a family, and yet daily life is full of resentment and conflict. Naturally she is afraid.

From films and literature she has also seen a completely opposite kind of love: often love at first sight, destined. The moment you see the other person you know, "This is the person I have been looking for."

That kind of love is intense and romantic, as if it fell from heaven, as if the meeting of two people had been arranged by the universe.

But back in real life she has never encountered that kind of fated love.

She has also seen people around her fall in love quickly and marry quickly, not because they truly understood each other, but because they had reached a certain age, their parents were pressing them, everyone around them was getting married, and so they felt they should complete this task too.

So she has begun to be confused:

What is true love, exactly?

What kind of relationship is worth entering into marriage?

Is the so-called "right person" the one who makes your heart race at first sight, or the one who, after a long time together, makes you feel safe and grounded and able to be completely yourself?

Is the essence of marriage a process of falling in love with the same person over and over?

Today I want to use this letter to share my view with you.

First, I want to say that our life is an adventure by its very nature.

Life is not about pursuing one most perfect outcome; it is about entering different experiences and experiencing, learning, and growing within each of them.

Travel is an adventure, work is an adventure, investing is an adventure; and getting to know someone, falling in love with them, and living together with another person is of course an adventure too.

Marriage is only one part of the whole adventure of a life.

The reason many people fear marriage is that before it has even begun they want to know the final outcome.

"Will we be happy forever?"

"Will he change later?"

"Will we quarrel?"

"Will he let me down?"

"If we divorce in future, does that mean the choice I make now was wrong?"

But there is nothing in life whose outcome can be guaranteed before it begins.

Investing has no guarantee, work has no guarantee, health has no guarantee, and marriage of course cannot have one either.

If you insist on waiting for a hundred percent certainty before you are willing to move forward, then in this whole life we probably could not do anything at all.

When we board a plane we do not know what turbulence we will meet; when we start a job we do not know whether the company will still exist in ten years; when we buy an index fund we do not know whether the market will rise or fall tomorrow.

Yet we can still, having understood the risk, bravely make a choice.

Marriage is the same.

Whether a marriage lasts forever in the end is not the only measure of whether that stretch of life was worthwhile.

Whether, in the process of being together, the two people learned love, respect, understanding, communication, and growth is what the relationship truly leaves us.

We are constantly taught how to study, take exams, work, and earn money, and yet almost no one teaches us how to get along with another person.

No one tells us how, when two people disagree, to express it without hurting the other; no one teaches us whether, when emotions run high, we should deal with the emotions first or rush to argue who is right and who is wrong.

We are also rarely taught how to listen, how to apologize, and how to accept that a partner is not the person we imagined.

So many marriages fail not because the two people stopped loving each other, but because the two people simply did not know how to get along.

My own life too was learned slowly, from one experience after another.

I have made mistakes, been through setbacks, and paid a great deal of tuition for my own errors. Sharing this experience today is precisely so that you can take fewer detours.

You are luckier than I was, because you can see some of the problems early through my experience of life, and you have the chance to avoid the mistakes I once made.

At the start of a relationship it is always easy to see the other person's good points.

Because you like them, whatever they do seems endearing; because you are in the flush of love, waiting is not a burden and accommodating them feels like happiness itself.

A truly long-term relationship is not about keeping forever the heart rate of the first meeting; it is about still being willing, once the novelty has faded, to see this person, to understand this person, and to accept that they are imperfect.

Because in life you may always meet someone more beautiful, more capable, richer, more romantic, even someone who looks more suited to you.

If a person is forever comparing, they can never settle.

The real choice is not to prove that the person in front of you is the best person in the world, but to decide for yourself:

"I am willing to cherish this person, and willing to build our life together with them."

Some people are very driven in their careers and may have less time for the family; some are good at solving problems and charging into the fray, and may also have a more forceful temperament; some are gentle and considerate but may not be very ambitious; some live steady lives but may be a little short on romance.

Every trait has a positive side and a negative side.

We cannot take only the benefit a trait brings while refusing entirely the price it may exact.

As with investing: you cannot demand high returns, low volatility, permanent gains, and availability at any moment; there is no such perfect investment in the world.

People are the same.

We cannot want a partner to have a mind of their own and also demand that they comply in everything; want them to succeed in their career and also demand that they be with us every minute; want them to speak honestly and also forbid them from saying what we do not want to hear.

So the so-called "right person" is usually not someone without flaws.

The right person is the one you are still willing to live with after seeing their strengths and understanding their limits.

As for how far a relationship should go before it is right for marriage?

I think the key is not how many months or years you have dated, but whether you have truly seen each other in different states.

When conflict arises, are you both willing to communicate, or is there coldness, humiliation, threats, or control over you? More important still is whether both people are willing to learn and adjust for the sake of the relationship.

We have to start with ourselves, doing it well and doing it right, saying "yes, okay, agreed" as far as possible; and even when we do not agree, we do not contradict, and at the very least we do not reply and do not answer, though this is not the cold shoulder.

A truly healthy "I do" means I do not need to win or lose over every small thing; it does not mean pretending that nothing matters no matter how the other person hurts me.

We can accept that where the toothpaste is squeezed from, what is for dinner, and where we stay on a trip do not all have to go our way; but the respect, honesty, and safety within the relationship still have to be guarded together.

The friend who wrote is also worried: even if she is willing to face her partner with an "I do" attitude, can she expect the other person to treat her the same way?

My answer is: we can express what we hope for, but we cannot control the result.

The most painful part of dealing with other people is often not the giving itself, but our belief that:

"I am this good to you, so you should repay me in exactly the same way." Love is without complaint or regret; true love asks for nothing in return!

Some people love with words, some with company, some by handling the problems in your life, and some by working hard in the hope of giving the family a more secure environment.

The other person does not necessarily love you in the way you expect, but you can observe, be willing to understand what she (or he) needs, and be willing to adjust together.

Marriage is not necessarily a strong flutter of the heart repeated every day; it is more like making the choice again every day.

There was friction today, and after dealing with it you are still willing to sit down and share a meal; your mood was bad today, and after calming down you are still willing to talk properly; you see the other person's imperfections and still remember why you chose them in the first place.

Perhaps this is what falling in love with the same person over and over means.

Not falling in love every day with the same appearance, but, through years in which you both keep changing, getting to know each other anew and learning anew how to love.

If in your twenties you have not yet met the so-called destined person, there is no need to be anxious at all.

Do not choose someone hastily because of your age, your parents, your peers, or society's gaze; but do not shut out every possibility because you fear the result will not be perfect either.

If you meet someone you are comfortable with, who respects you and can communicate, you can bravely get to know them.

You do not have to decide at the first meeting whether they are your partner for life.

Be sincere with each other first, live through life together, and gradually come to see each other.

We cannot foresee the future, but at every present moment we can make an honest choice.

If in your heart you long for marriage and family, do not give up your own chance to experience happiness because you have seen other people fail.

Other people's marriages are not your destiny, and your parents' relationship is not the script for your future relationship.

You have already begun to learn how to understand yourself and manage your emotions, and to think about how to get along with a partner. On that basis alone you already have a better chance of building a happy family than many people who walk into marriage with no preparation at all.

The meaning of life is not in avoiding every setback, but in bravely entering different experiences.

We will love, and we may be disappointed; we will gain, and we may lose; we will be happy, and inevitably we will be sad too.

But it is these experiences that make a life complete.

So do not fear marriage too much.

The final outcome of a marriage is not our only purpose; in the process of living together we learn how to love, how to be loved, how to understand, how to accept, and how to become a more mature version of ourselves, and those are the truly important gains.

We do not know how the future will turn out, but we can still walk forward bravely.

Love is not finding a perfect person; it is two imperfect people who, in real life, are still willing to understand each other and grow together.

We do not choose to love because we are certain we will never be hurt; we choose it because, having understood that life offers no guarantees, we are still willing to believe, willing to experience, and willing to cherish.

This is life.

And this is the most beautiful thing about love and marriage.

That is all I wanted to share with you today.

This is CLEC James Talks, and I am James.

I wish you all the courage to experience life, and I hope every one of you finds ease, peace, and happiness in love.

See you next time.