Oprah says something valuable!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/04/08/o.why.i.alone/index.html

This is an article posted on CNN but originally comes from Oprah.com (no, Oprah herself did not write this).  I think this is the first time ever in my entire life that I read an article in mainstream venues that advocates banishing fear and learning to love yourself.

I'm shocked.

I had just finished scanning over such gems as 5 Reasons Why Men Are Afraid Of Monogamy (from that horrible site Don't Date Him Girl.com) and re-reading my Just Settle post.  I had put myself in a good and frothy rage over the futility and imbecility of women who fall victim to this horribly cruel ideology that life just isn't complete without a man and if they don't have one, it means that they have FAILED as women and are doomed to live out their remaining years childless, loveless, and all alone (let's completely ignore the very valuable support system of friends and family and the idea that babies can be created outside of a marriage bed AND that this fantasy has a more than 50% fail rate when acted upon in real life, not to mention the concept that many of us actively reject this fantasy and are *happy* being Intentionally UnMarried and Childfree By Choice ... and a dozen other battlecruiser-sized holes that can be poked into that false claim).

Then I read this article.

The basic premise is that women are constantly barraged with signs and warnings that time is running out and they should hurry up and get themselves a man before it's too late.  So when women find themselves without a man, they ask "why am I still single?"  And the author says these women are asking themselves the wrong question.

She says:

"Consider, for starters, what happens when you ask yourself, "Why am I still single?" You immediately lump yourself in with a designated sorry category that, I'm going to argue right here, doesn't truly exist.

Let me explain. In all those social science studies of singles versus marrieds, everyone knows that the singles group is considered the unfortunates. That's why it's always news when they find -- who would believe it? -- that the single women have managed to eke out some happiness in their otherwise bleak lives.

And yet, in actual terms, there's no such thing as single as a bloc. It's not a solid category like Armenian. It's not a fixed characteristic like shoe size. If anything, it's a false social construct. Nowadays, we're all single at some points in our lives, involved at others, which is why it gets you a whole lot farther to ask yourself, "How can I make the most of whatever stage I'm in?" And then set about to figure out the answer."

*(underlining emphasis mine)*

She points out that women who enjoy their life and who they are right now are more attractive as mates and end up finding love anyway, but to seek "fulfillment" of life in order to find love doesn't work and really defeats the purpose of it.

"The question "Why am I single?" sends you in one direction and one direction alone: toward a zone of fear. The implication is you're failing. You're in the void. That kind of thought is a trap. ...

When you expand yourself, you expand your world. And that's why you do it, why you shift into a generous realm, not to get a boyfriend, though there's a good chance that will be one result. (You're a lot more attractive with a wide, full life than when you're judging each man by what he can give you.) 

You do it for the broader vision, for the expansion itself, which will build on itself till your life will have levels and depths you never thought possible. You do it in order to be fully present at each moment of your life. When you are, anything can happen. When you're shut down by fear, not much will. And you do it because when you're in that larger place, you get to see, once and for all, there's really nothing out there.

(by "out there", she's referencing that mythical "out there" place that holds all the scariness that we are trying to avoid with catching ourselves a husband, as in "there are no good men out there" and "Looking for love? Put yourself out there".)

Let's hear it for one article to promote healthy self-fulfillment and enjoyment of life and to reject clinging desperately to the idea of Prince Charming riding up on his white steed to save us from a bleak and lonely future devoid of all love and happiness without that man to make us Whole And Complete.  I'd like to see more of these kinds of articles getting coverage, instead of Cosmo's 5 Secrets You Must Keep From Your Man (last month's cover story, seriously) and Speed Dating seminars.