Elephant on a Rope...

In India, where elephants are used for work animals, baby elephants are kept tied to a rope, which is attached to a stake in the ground. Due to being small and relatively weak, they can't pull the rope out, no matter how hard they try. Eventually they just stop trying to break free and take it for granted that they can't escape.

Later in life, when the elephants are full grown and much stronger, they could easily break free of the rope, but they are held in place by the same sized rope and stake, because in their mind they are still small and weak and don't even try to break free.

Sometimes, your limitations are only in your mind....

Starter Wife

Perception often affects our willingness to make important decisions, to take action instead of sitting on the sidelines and "missing the whole game". Life is about playing the game.

If you believe in being married before having children, the way it was when I was growing up, try to think of your first wife as a "starter wife". That way you can get married young, maybe in your early twenties or younger, and know with confidence that you'll still have plenty of time to recover from any mistakes you may have made in choosing a partner. Plus you won't pass up perfectly decent partners while waiting for Miss Perfect to show up and quite possibly miss out on marriage altogether when she never arrives. I've seen this happen.

The best that can happen is a young and crowded wedding where all your friends can attend and your parents too while they're still alive, one big party and then a lifetime of wedded bliss. The worst that can happen is you last maybe ten years before calling it quits in your early thirties, but you'll still be young enough to start over and maybe get a kid out of the deal who will be ten years old already.

If you hold out too long and you get too old before that first marriage, people will think you're weird anyway, so if you find yourself still dating in your thirties and never got married, tell people you're divorced.

Good luck.