"You'll Never Get Married."

Did anyone ever tell you you couldn't achieve your dream? How did it make you feel? Did you believe them? Did you give up? Did you let them steal your dream from you?

Or did you say, "Oh yeah?" And go out and do it!

Get mad and get going!

It happened to me once. Someone told me point blank, "You'll never be published." I had made the mistake of mentioning that I wanted to be a writer. (Never do that. Even if your life's ambition is to get up at 11 a.m. every day and sort the mail in your fuzzy socks, don't tell anybody. Because as sure as I am typing here in my fuzzy socks, somebody will snort at you and say, "You? A mail sorter? HAH!" Of course people who say that are just mail sorter wannabes themselves.) The guy I was talking to wanted to be a writer himself. His remark had nothing to do with me. I know that now. But at the time, it stung.

What if I failed? What if I got rejected? What if I embarrassed myself trying? 

Actually, no. His remark did not make me think any of those things. I was already worried about those things all by myself! Up until that moment, those were the very things that had kept me from trying.

Then he goes, "You'll never be published" and suddenly I'm like, "Oh yeah?" Now I have to try if just to defend my dream. And I did it.

Not that day. Not that week. Not even that year.

I made a bunch of rookie mistakes first and those take time.

One mistake was sending stuff out randomly like scattering seeds to the four winds hoping by luck that one would take root. Another mistake was trying to write in someone else's voice—which resulted in characters who wanted to beat up their mothers (my Flannery O'Connor phase).

I did get one thing right though: I kept trying. You see I'd already gotten the past the worst thing that could happen—rejection. The naysayer had given me a taste of it and guess what—it didn't kill me.  So any mistakes I would make would not kill me either. They would teach me something. Now if you really want to talk vulnerable, I also asked writer friends for their honest opinion. What if they tell me I'm no good? But it was a risk I needed to take. If I couldn't bear to let them see my work, why the heck was I trying to publish anything?

In the end, none of the things I tried actually helped me meet my goal. Instead, Providence arranged it. I had been writing letters to an editor friend who had left his job for the seminary. Little did I know that the seminary had put him in charge of a magazine owned by the community. One day he called and asked me to write for the magazine. He loved my letters.

Does any of the above remind you of online dating?

The reason you are on this site is because you have a dream. You want to meet "the one" and get married. Do you have a nervous little voice inside your head saying, What if I fail? What if I get rejected? What if I embarrass myself trying? Is it holding you back?

Let's do a little examination of dating conscience:

• Are you being yourself when you date? Or am you pretending to be someone else? Perhaps someone you think is classier, smarter, more sophisticated?
• Are you using a targeted approach or just randomly emailing as many people as possible? Do you spend enough time trying to learn the art of dating? For instance, do you practice talking to the opposite sex?
• Do you research what the opposite sex finds valuable in a mate? (Here's what women like; here's what men like.)
• What happens if you get rejected? Are you going to up and quit or are you going to try to learn something from it that will help you next time?
• Do your friends know what's holding you back? Can you let them be honest with you so they can help you improve? If you can't stand to ask them for their opinion, how are you going to get through an actual date?

Trying to find your mate for life is probably the most vulnerable thing you'll ever do.

If that scares you, then let me tell you point blank, "You'll never get married." Did that make you mad? Good.

You need some fire in your belly if you are going to go after your dream. Sometimes, it takes a naysayer to get you good and mad so that you stop dithering around.

Now take the next step. You will probably make some mistakes. Dating is awkward. You will live and you will learn. And if this is what God wants for you, it will happen—perhaps when you least expect it. And you'll be ready for it because you were already trying.