How I react to people getting married

Today while in Times Square I saw a couple who'd just gotten married. They were probably in their forties. They were having their picture taken with their three sons. It made me smile, which got me thinking.

When I hear about people my age and younger getting married, I generally do not have a positive reaction to it unless I know the couple well and believe that it's the right decision for them. I'm going to attempt to explain why.

Marriage is one of those accepted checkpoints in life. After high school the general pattern is college, marriage, kids. And that's all well and good if that's what you really want and you're able to make it happen. But too often it seems to me that people haven't really thought things through. They don't know what they really want, they just do things because "it's what people do."

So I guess when I see an older couple getting married I think it's more likely that they've really thought it through. They've had more time to get to know themselves and figure out what they really want.

The real subject of this blog post is not marriage, but introspection. I'm here to encourage everyone to take the time and effort to get to know themselves. Figure out what you really want separate from society's conventions. Don't be a mindless robot checking things off an arbitrary list you didn't create for yourself.

And if after you've done that you decide to get married then I will raise my glass to you with a cheerful "Mazel Tov!"