Yesterday, I was drowning in ennui about my fears of a relationship I'd like to enter, and as such, I found myself talking to some depressed friends about their sour love lives and noticing all the unrequited love around me (particularly the sad case of a boy who's had a crush on a friend of a friend for years and though I could see it and so could everyone in the restaurant, she was beyond oblivious to it).
But more importantly, as I heard one person utter, "when will I find my true love?" it dawned on me how much of a negative connotation this question has.
I've never once asked this question positively.
However, my training in law of attraction screamed at me that of course, no one in the right frame of mind to find their true love is thinking, "when will I find my true love?" This is a question of despair.
This is a question of lack.
A question of distance, time, possibility, sensibility, faith...
and not having them or questioning them.
Anyone who knows the law of attraction (I like Esther Hicks' definition, "what you're thinking and feeling and what you're receiving are always a match"), knows that this is the wrong frame of mind to seek love.
So, I began to think, who has thought "when will I find my true love?" and thought of it in the most positive way possible? And then it dawned on me while playing Super Smash Brothers Melee for the 800th time (I was practicing for a tournament) that Mario is a hero like this.
He rushes into whole new worlds and risks everything to save his true love--to the point of destroying brick walls with his head, fighting fire breathing dragon-turtle monsters, jumping canyons...
Mario triumphantly marches through each world as if it's the only world--it's the world he must overcome to save his princess.
And here I'm reminded of Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith because no matter what, no matter how badly I fail him or how much I lack faith that I can beat the game, Mario never lets himself or us down--he believes 100% in his goal and never falters.
Never is there a scene of Mario breaking down and screaming, "when will I find my true love? Where is she?" He never asks, "Who is my true love?" He knows.
We feel the disappointment for him.
We feel the want to settle for him--we just beat the whole level, and it's just going to get harder...
and there's this perfectly good, already saved princess right here in this world already...
But Mario never gives up.
He gets the triumphant music, sees the princess, she thanks him, and he moves on because "our princess is in another castle.
" He's focused on what he wants and goes after it.
And though some of my feminist friends think Mario is a sexist archetype because a princess isn't a reward (a sentiment I fully agree with), I hope they can see that it doesn't have to be that way (mostly because you'd want your love to save you if a turtle-dragon kidnapped you, wouldn't you? I know I would--especially if she dressed like Mario).
However, on a deeper level, I mean this whole thing much more symbolically anyway: Mario has a sole focus on the love that he wants and lets nothing stand in his way.
His faith never wavers, and though he's often saving the wrong princess (dating the wrong people), he does it with grace and full-hearted, honest focus.
And though he asks the question, "when will I find my true love?", he asks it thinking only about time--how long will it be until we're together again? How long will it be until I find my true love? He's a perfect example of the use of the law of attraction: he knows what he wants, imagines getting it, and destroys every "block" (and mushroom and boomerang throwing turtles and...
) in his way...