Love Can Be A Scavenger Hunt If You Want It To Be

You're surrounded by clues, you just have to find them.

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Finding love is a big deal.

It's something most of us aspire to, whether we know it or not.

It's something we crave whether or not we acknowledge it.

We're all on the lookout for someone to build a life with.

We all want to belong, and love relationships satisfy that desire.

I recently read something that said that finding love is dictated by a bunch of random occurrences.

That it's primarily accidental, and there's not much you can do about it.

And you look at the numbers, finding love is definitely a challenge:

Researchers in the UK did the math, and this is what they found:

• Only about 84,440 people in the UK match what the average person is looking for
• Mutual attraction happens about 18% of the time
• 65-74 year-olds have about a 1/304 chance of finding love which is the best odds of any age group
• 18-24 year-olds have the worst odds at 1/1,024
• On average, those in urban areas have much better odds at 1/394 than people in rural areas at about 1/649 of meeting someone
• Socializing at the gym improves the odds by 15%
• Having drinks after work increases the odds by 16%
• Single people in the UK between the ages of 35 and 47 are most likely to be looking to settle down

So it would seem that if you're going to leave your love life to chance, finding the one will be a bit of an uphill battle, the numbers also show that if you're proactive, your odds improve.

Luckily, finding love can be like a scavenger hunt if you want it to be. It doesn't have to be something out of your control. You're not necessarily at the mercy of the randomness of the Universe. In fact, you can bend that randomness to your will.

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You can create your life with the choices you make.

You can make your own luck (good or bad.)

I know the world is chaotic and unpredictable, but it's how you function in the chaos that matters.

If you look at your pursuit of passion as a great big game, you can't go wrong.

Because the pointers are always right in front of you. You just have to recognize and follow them.

Choose what to take from the randomness and create your own patterns.

Because unconsciously or not, you're doing this anyway.

Your life is the culmination of every choice you've ever made. Yes, there are loads of things that happen out of your control, but how you handle them is down to choice.

The patterns you're living are self-manifested, and only you have the power to create your life and the love within it.

Since every game has to start somewhere, start with yourself because you're the square that says "Go."

That's how you start the game - by looking at what you already have.

People who are looking for love have often already filled their lives with a wonderfully close-knit group of friends.

Your path to love could start there.

Even if you don't have a massive group of friends, chances there is at least one or two people who have always thought you'd be great for someone they know.

Sure, they're not going to be 100% right about who they'd choose for you, but you never know. These people know you pretty well, so they might make a couple of good calls.

At least this will give you a start and get you out there. If you're kind and respectful to everyone you meet, you might make a friend, and that's a pretty decent result.

Who knows, maybe one of those people know someone you'd like - stranger things have happened.

If you have "couple" friends, ask them how they met, why they fell in love, what they think their secret is.

They might give you some ideas you hadn't thought of.

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My sister was the one who convinced me to join Lavalife all those years ago. She was on it for a bit of fun and thought it would be good for me.

At first, I resisted, but then I thought, why not - and guess what?

That's how I met the love of my life, the man I've been with for 17-years now.

That choice was one way I took control to cut a path towards what I was looking for.

Next, remember your life is full of love.

You may be single and pining for a mate, but if you saw how many people love you, you could relax a bit.

Once you realize your life is full of love, you can focus on making your already great life even better.

That's an attitude adjustment that counts.

Instead of desperately pining for someone to save you, you'll be keeping an eye out for someone to take your happiness to the next level.

You're much more likely to recognize a good thing when it comes along from this vantage point.

Another thing that might need to happen is you might need to find forgiveness before you'll be able to love someone else.

If you're holding a bitter grudge against an old flame or family member, that might be a problem.

Carrying around feelings of anger, obsessing over vengeance, and reliving old pain could be making you seem toxic to other people.

It's probably tethering you to whoever's hurt you in a twisted, hurtful way.

When you hold on tight to bad feelings, you might feel like you've got control of them, but the reality is when that happens, they're controlling you.

You might really think you want to fall in love, but until you let go of those feelings, you're probably not up for it.

If you're stuck in a grudge and you want to break free, these ideas might help you foster some forgiveness:

• Try being empathetic towards the person who hurt you
• Ask yourself if you might have done the same thing if you'd been in their shoes
• Try to remember that you've also hurt people, and you'd like those people to forgive you
• Ask someone impartial for their opinion. Maybe you're being too hard on that person
• Remember that forgiveness is a process that takes time, don't be too hard on yourself if it doesn't come easy
• Worst case scenario, that person is an idiot and a jerk, and what they did doesn't deserve forgiveness. Forgive them anyway, because living your best life totally over them will probably bug them the most anyway

Forgiveness is a choice.

When you choose to forgive, you decide to set yourself free.

Forgiveness is how you forge a new path.

You walk away from old drivers and embrace new ways to operate.

You see life through new eyes, picking up on new signals and clues.

You see things that might have gone unnoticed.

In a scavenger hunt, you get clues and find things along the way.

One clue leads to another until, in the end, you get a prize.

If you don't solve a clue, you can't move on. Love is the same.

When we miss the lesson, we encounter bigger and bigger signs, usually bigger problems, or we get stuck in a toxic cycle.

Every breakup, every disaster, heartbreak, and fight tells you something.

Every kind word, every moment of compassion, every opportunity for healing you share with someone is also telling you something.

These are the clues leading you to your goal.

This scavenger hunt continues until you've followed the clues to the best person for you.

Read the signs in your life and follow the clues.

Here are some best practices for making better choices:

• Avoid overstimulation, have quiet time, take a walk, spend some time alone
• Be selective about who you associate with, spend time with people who lift your spirits, appreciate you, have something positive to offer
• Move your body
• Think of life as a learning experience
• Become aware of your unconscious emotional programming
• Listen to your intuition
• Think before you act

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Do these things to make good choices and take control of your destiny because finding love shouldn't be like tossing a coin into a well and wishing for the right person to come along.

Finding love is a scavenger hunt complete with clues that will lead you directly to the right person if you pay attention and make the right choices.

Follow me to see more interesting tidbits and hardcore common sense.

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