Couple of years back, I received an email called ‘13 Phrases of Living’. Basically, it has 13 sentences about life that we all know but we don’t think about it that often. I found them all inspiring and informative in a way, so I saved it. Now, I’ll type it out one by one to share with you. The first one goes like this:

I love you not for who you are, but who I am when I’m by your side.

I find this very true. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s not easy to find someone who loves you as you are. People always think, ‘if he/she loves me, he/she will change that for me’ or ‘If I try hard enough, I can be the ideal person for him/her.’ However, the truth is he/she lives their life for more than 20 years (even 30 years) before they met you, how could you ask them to change anything for you? And if you want to change, you can’t keep it up forever, and when you get tired of trying (or pretending) then that’d be the end of your ‘love’. Only when you are happy with who you are when you are with that person, then that relationship can last for a really long time.

幾年前，我收到了一封叫做13 Phrases of Living的電子郵件。基本上，內含13 個你我都知道但卻不常思考的句子。某方面來說，我認為它們很有啟發性，也很具教育性，所以我當時將它儲存了下來。現在，我將它一一打出跟你們分享。第一句是這麼說的：

I love you not for who you are, but who I am when I’m by your side.

（我愛你不是因為你是什麼樣的人，而是因為我站在你身邊是什麼樣的人。）

我認為這句話說得真的很真切。我知道這聽起來陳腔濫調，但是要找到一個愛真正的你的人並不容易。人們總是想「如果他／她夠愛我，他／她就會為我改變」或者「只要我夠努力，我會成為他／她的理想對象」。然而，事實是他／她在遇到你之前過了20多年（甚至30年）的生活，你怎麼能要求他們為你改變？再說，如果你想改變，你也無法一直不斷持續下去，當你嘗試（或假裝）得累了，那將是你「愛情」的終點。只有當你跟一個人在一起時，你對在他身邊的自己感到滿意，這段感情才能維持很久。至少，這是我的想法。