Soul Mates

How exactly do you define soul mates? Are people actually created in pairs, just waiting to meet, destined to always be together? I don't really think so. I never believed in the institution of an arranged marriage but these days I am slowly coming round to the idea. Because I've seen that it doesn't matter whether or not two people love each other before they decide to get married. What matters is, how willing they are to accept each other with all their imperfections, instead of looking for the image of a perfect Mr Right or Miss Right that they always had in mind. What matters is, how hard and how patiently they are willing to work at their relationship. Once two people agree on a few of the most basic things that a couple needs to agree on, it doesn't really matter how many other things they agree on. What matters is, how gracefully they can agree to disagree. Accept that the other person may think differently about various subjects, and that the other person has their own freedom of expression, and that you need to respect that. Both partners should understand and respect the other's point of view, and accept it, not try to change it. Understand that it takes a lot of hard work to make a relationship, any relationship work. A friend of mine and I were talking about this stuff recently. He pointed out that even though we all have disagreements with our parents and our siblings, we still know we love them and want to live with them. We don't tell ourselves that we need a different mother. I found his point of view really interesting and thought-provoking. It's true. It just takes an acceptance of the fact that you have to live with a certain person, and you are able to live with them. It's as simple as that.