Ayoola Tosin

Permit me to use this medium to tell the human race that this is genuinely the best time for every human to train their heart against the idea of love and "forever" with a particular person. Nobody is "your person." Soulmates are a myth. "Forever" is an illusion. You cannot have anybody forever. The attraction that happens between you and people is a product of time, phase, and space. And time changes, phases fade, and space evolves—if not for you, then for them. To have someone forever is to remain unswept by these tides of change. It is to remain their favourite experience amidst a new job and that one colleague, a new city, a new financial milestone, a new ideology and worldview, an evolved emotional state, and a curated social media timeline. What are the chances? What are the chances that it is you they still want after a promotion at work and improved accessibility to people of high status in their industry? What are the chances that it is you they'd still want after attaining financial independence, becoming able to travel between cities and across the world, and being exposed to options you can never stand against? After they exit the life stage where they were just lonely and miserable? After achieving stability in life and becoming able to consume ideologies on social media that do not validate their relationship dynamics with you? What are the chances? What are the chances that you can stand against all these moving parts forever? You see, there has never been a time in human history when humans have had so many "distractions" as they do today. Social and economic endeavours, relationships, and faith practices have, due to the fast pace of the world today, become distractions from one another. Engagement in one becomes a distraction from the other. And the time we live in has made each of these "distractions" elemental, necessary, and important. What are the chances that, in that person's distributed attention towards all these "distractions", you remain their favourite distraction forever? That your relevance will not, at some point, slip from their grip? What guarantee do you have? That you're special? Okay, bro. Now, none of this is an argument against falling in love. It is not an invitation to avoid emotional connections, become inaccessible, or approach every human relationship with suspicion. By all means, fall in love. Be vulnerable. Be affectionate. Make memories. Allow yourself to experience the beautiful things that human connection has to offer. But train your heart against attachment to the idea of forever. Learn to live in the moment, and for the moment, when the moment gives you someone worth experiencing. Enjoy the person without making a lifetime contract with an experience that may only be passing through your life. Learn to appreciate what someone brings into your life without making their continued presence a condition for your own happiness. Do not erase yourself in the pursuit of permanence. Do not abandon your interests, ambitions, friendships, convictions, and individuality because you are trying to become indispensable to someone. You must learn to love someone without making them the custodian of your entire emotional existence. To be able to love and still have yourself. To be able to give without losing your sense of proportion. To be able to enjoy someone's presence without becoming terrified of their absence. And, perhaps most importantly, learn to love while it is worth it, and detach when it no longer serves you. Not because you never cared, but because caring about someone should not require you to abandon your responsibility to yourself. People will err. People will change. People will disappoint you. Some will hurt you, and some will walk away. These are not unfortunate possibilities; they are realities of human relationships. You cannot build your entire emotional stability around the assumption that the person you love will never become the person who hurts you.