A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Confucius

If you are headed toward marriage – Listen up – This one’s for you.

Don’t do it!

I don’t mean don’t get married. (I think you SHOULD do that)

Don’t buy into the lies of our society that say your wedding day is the “be all, end all” of your marriage. “It will be the best time”, “the best day”, “best yada yada yada…”

Oh yes, I believe it will be good. But there’s more to it than that. I promise.

I’ve heard it said that “many couples plan for the wedding, but not the marriage.” It’s so true – after days, months, and years of courting, dating, being engaged, it seems like the marriage is the final hurrah!

But it’s not true.

Commencement Vs. Finish Line

The Finish Line is the end. You run as hard as you can you give every effort, you strive and struggle and burst your way through to collapse on the other side, completely done, completely spent – with nothing else to give.

At Commencement - You celebrate, you have a good time, but you realize there is more work to be done, you still have years of college ahead, years of work and life before you. It’s like you graduate into the next level of work and life and experience.

Marriage is a commencement. Not a finish Line.

Let’s take some of the spotlight off the wedding day. Let’s put some of the focus on figuring out how to grow and learn and experience life and love, happiness and pain and struggle — together.

With the finish line mentality, you train and train to get to the end. Then you’re done. You have nothing else to give. If you go into marriage with a finish line mentality – it’s not going to work. You actually have to live life with this person for [hopefully] the next several decades of your life. You don’t get to stop. You aren’t done. You are just beginning.

With a commencement – you have done great work preparing and getting to this level of achievement! Kudos to you.  Yes celebrate. Yes, enjoy the celebration. Live it up.

But realize there’s more to it than a day.

More training, more dedication, more studying, more learning, more experiencing things that you haven’t done yet. You don’t take your foot off the pedal. You accelerate thru and kick it into another gear to get you even closer to the goal.

Marriage is a Commencement. Not a Finish Line.

What do you think? Right on, or off my rocker?

photo:CarbonNYC