Growing up we all had dreams of how we saw our lives unfolding. We pursued the things we had control over, and worked hard to try and put certain things in place. But finding and falling in love is not necessarily something you can check off of your list so easily. That’s not how life works. Love is messy.

But, giving up that vision is difficult and can prevent us from seeing other — likely better — options standing right in front of us because we are so stuck trying to achieve the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be. That means being open to new things, things that may make us slightly uncomfortable at first, and playing around with that “preferences” section rather than simply inputting exactly what we think we want. You might find yourself happily surprised!