Just So You Know, Love Doesn’t Have To Be Your Whole World

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Thought.is

Love doesn’t have to be it for you. Love doesn’t have to make you feel complete or make you whole. One person’s love does not have to be your whole world. There is more to you than love, there is more to your life than finding it, there is more to your life than keeping it. There’s so much more.

You can wake up next to the person who makes you feel like today will be okay just because they’re with you. You can spend the entire day with them and feel like you’re floating on a cloud, like life is just easy and all of the hard stuff doesn’t really matter. You can stay with them for long periods of time. You can date them, move in with them, marry them, have children with them, but that doesn’t have to be it for you. That doesn’t have to be your whole life. Your world does not need to revolve around love.

You can chase your dreams. You can run after them until you’re so exhausted you can’t see straight. You can work hard and feel good when that hard work pays off. You can feel like shit when it doesn’t. You can try a handful of career paths and get lost while attempting to find the one that’s ‘right’ for you. You can nail that interview. You can land your dream job. You can do all of it with or without love.

You can face your fears. You can go on adventures in places you’ve never been, and you can meet all kinds of people along the way. You can do it on your own or you can choose to do it with someone else, with friends, with family, with strangers, with lovers. You can do all of these things and it doesn’t matter whether or not you have one special person to do them with, or one special person to come home to after.

You don’t need one special person who loves you to fill your life with energy and joy, and you can’t expect love to be your only source of happiness. You don’t have to be just one thing. You’re not just someone’s girlfriend or wife or partner, you’re someone who realizes that love is just one part of you. Love is just one part of your life.

Stay true to who you are with or without love. Become the person you want to be regardless. Love doesn’t have to be your whole world. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

Nicole Tarkoff

Writer based in the Philadelphia area. Person who really loves her dog and watching cooking shows. Check out my writing on Thought Catalog and follow me on Facebook! Connect with me and submit your work on Collective World.

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