THRUST BACKWARD

Let's say you have a high-definition television. The picture you see is vibrant, crystal-clear and almost alive.
Then, one day, it breaks down. So you pull out your old, regular-definition set. And suddenly the view is less colorful, dull and flat.
It has lost its life, its reality, its fullness.
It's far less than what you once knew.
That is the reality of life after love.
One day, with the one you love, your eyes have been opened to an entirely new world and a suddenly fresh and vibrant new life. It as if you and your heart have been awakened from a decades-long sleep in which there were dreams kind of like this, and yet nothing close to this amazing.
Everything is more real. Even the mere act of taking a breath and blinking take on new meaning in this revised and overhauled reality. Every heartbeat is a drumbeat to a new way of living, changing your walk through this existence from a slogging march to a break-dancing, free-form expression of pure joy. Your feet barely touch the ground, if, indeed, they can find terra firma at all.
And then, without warning or hint, you are unceremonially thrust back into the world you thought you'd left behind for life. It's as if you were blind for decades, been allowed to suddenly see and experience real sight, and then gone blind again. You almost wish you'd never been allowed to see at all, because then you would never know what you had been missing. Or what you now will miss for the remainder of your life. Because you never will see like that, march like that, live like that ever again.
Not unless the one you love will return.
And that seems very unlikely, if not entirely impossible.
It's as if the bank has repossessed your Hi-Def TV and handed you a 10-inch black-and-white with rabbit ears and told you that's all you get to watch from now on. It would remarkable if you'd never seen any TV before, but how can you go back now that you seen what can be?
How can anything ahead in life ever compare to the love you know and have known?
Indeed, how?

WHAT IS LIFE WITHOUT LOVE?

What is the point of life, if not love?
We spend our formative years (hopefully) being taught how it feels to be loved unconditionally. In the process, we (hopefully) also learn that being loved feels very good, because we will want to know that feeling even more once we grow up.
Along the way (hopefully) we are watching and learning from parents, grandparents, siblings and others how to love. We see the sacrifices made willingly. We see the small loving gestures, the tender touches, the loving looks, the caresses, the closeness, the sharing of all things -- good and bad, pretty and ugly -- so that we can do this one day for someone we love.
Then, when the time comes and both heart and mind, soul and body, are ready, we begin to search the world for the one we are meant, created and built to love. There will be false starts, blind alleys and dead ends along the way and the path may twist and turn, rise and fall and test our resolve, determination and endurance, but to not continue, to not push on is to consider a lifetime without love.
And that would be a hollow, lifeless experience. Far too sad to even consider.
So we keep searching in the faces, the eyes, the hearts of all we meet. Is it her? Can he be the one? Always pushing past each disappointment and picking up the search where we left it. Because our hearts demand that we keep looking until, at last, it finds the heart that completes us.
Not once in this journey do we ever consider that maybe we will find this one, this better half, this soulmate and they will, for reasons we cannot comprehend, choose a life without love. For it is one thing to think we may never find our "one." It is quite another to think that person will reject us completely.
And then it happens. We are stunned, shaken and lost. Because the cause seemed so right, so noble, so perfect. There's no longer a need to search, for we have found. But what we have found, in turn, chose something and someone else. And we are left alone, with a heart leaden with love, heavy to carry, bruised and broken, but with no place to run, nowhere to turn.
For without love, what is the reason for life?

WATCHING A MISTAKE

Short of losing them entirely, one of the hardest things is to watch someone you love make a mistake.
Not an "oops, I put too much peanut butter in my cookie recipe" kind of mistake, but the kind of error that ultimately may change them entirely.
It is hard to watch them walk away from love, give up on their talent, their gift or quit on themselves. You can't stop them because they have the God-given right to make their own choices and decisions. But it still hurts to watch them make that choice and know, in your heart and soul, that it is so horribly wrong for them.
Especially when, it can appear, they are, in essence, rejecting you and everything you once shared.
How can you just stand by and see someone you love decide they'd rather live with abuse, disrespect, dominance and parental-style control than with you? How can you accept that this person, whom you love without condition, would rather be with someone who treats them as less than an equal, less than a partner and more like a child, a worker, a slave, a piece of property? What can you do when you see them turn away from their God-given talent, a tremendous and powerful gift, a gift they once called "their reason for existing," just so they can be that much farther away from you? How can anyone watch the one they love give up on themselves and on love? How can you accept that they would rather feel nothing at all than continue to live a full array of emotions with you? What are you to think when you realize they would rather go the rest of their life totally numb than to spend another second experiencing a fuller life with you?
How do you deal with the stark reality that they'd rather feel nothing than to be with you?
But this is their choice and you have to make it. All you can do is hope that sometime, in some future, they will come to their senses and realize they've made a horrible mistake. And then you have to hope they can swallow their pride just enough to admit to themselves that they've made the mistake and take steps to at least take back their talent and themselves, even if they never can find it within themselves to come back to you.
But maybe, given enough time, they might realize that was a mistake too, and turn back to you anyway.
All you can do is watch, wait, hope and pray. Because the choice, ultimately, is theirs to make.

LOVE REVIVED

What happens to love rejected or ignored? Does it die? Does it disappear? Does it go into hibernation, awaiting the return of the sunny smile of a lover?
Love, I believe, is like matter and energy -- it cannot be destroyed or lost; it is perpetual. It may change its form, or its location, or its level of passion or depth, but it is forever. But it can be given to another and never returned. They keep it and can either give it to another, or return it in kind to the one who first gave it.
Sometimes, it stays with us because another does not want it. It then can change from the passionate, flowing love to a colder, frozen, listless love that lingers but does not leave, that hibernates within the heart, awaiting the warmth of another to thaw it and bring it back to life.
Of course, not just any person can revive love. Only the right person, the right heart, the right matching love can bring the love in a heart back to life, can warm it back into a passionate state. Others may try, like all of those princes who tried to revive Sleeping Beauty, but only the right heart, the right kiss, the right love can reawaken the love laying idle in a heart.
Whether or not that love comes along and is willing to smile warmly on the heart laying idle and cold is outside the control of the one awaiting love's return. He or she can only wait in hope and faith, for that time to come. And believe the right love once again will come along to revive the love in the cold, idle heart.

WHY FEAR?

Growing up, I was afraid to look a beautiful woman in the eyes. I still am, actually.
Part of me is afraid I will look in her eyes and see her laughing at what she sees. Another part of me is afraid I will look in her eyes and realize she doesn't even see me.
I don't know where that fear comes from. It has no basis in fact or reality, nor can I say looking into a beautiful woman's eyes is dangerous, for me or any other man. I've been so afraid to do it, so I can't say this fear is based on some lived-out experience. I can say that when I was younger I often did see disgust and disbelief on the face of a pretty woman when I asked her out on a date.
But then that is the problem with fear, isn't it? It usually has no basis in experience or reality. What is prejudice but a form of fear? And yet most prejudiced people I know have had no real-life experience with those they fear. If they did, then maybe I could understand the fear.
When I was in high school, I got mugged in the park by a group of Hispanic teens. That experience could have prejudiced me against Hispanics or given me an overgrown fear of them. But it did not. I do not know why it did not, it just didn't.
So where do our fears come from? Why, for example, might a woman fear men as much as I fear looking into the eyes of a beautiful woman? She has good reason for her fear, having been abandoned by an abusive father and then disrespected and abused by so many men since then, including a controlling and overbearing spouse. And yet her fear of men may well have driven into just such a relationship because she was afraid to open up to a man, to be vulnerable to a man, to truly love a man.
So what can we do to keep our fears from ruling our lives and keeping us from those who truly love us?
Sometimes it takes just one person to break through the walls of fear and give love a chance. Sometimes it takes just one moment of courage to stand up to a fear and, in doing so, diminish it in the light of a new day.
Sometimes it just takes a single, brave individual to make a life-altering change, to reach away from fear and toward love, to put fear in its place.

A LONELY ROAD

At some point in life, you realize the road ahead is shorter than the pavement already covered. You don't know how much shorter, just that it must be.
At that point, life takes on a different shape and meaning. You realize it has far less to do with things and achievements and more about sharing what little time is left with the people or person who is/are most important to you. Oh, you still may put in long hours in order to keep your job, to earn a raise or to simply shorten the time to retirement, but it is far less about some grand goal to become, say, president of the company and more about staving off the rumors that you've lost a step or that you are just coasting to retirement. Or it may just be necessary in these days of management squeezing every last second of productivity out of the workforce, sometimes just before laying them all off and sending the work to some far-off foreign land.
But you aren't doing it with your eyes on some mountaintop goal, some high accomplishment. In fact, you can't wait to get out of there and get back to the one(s) you love.
For some of us, however, that also is not achievable, because the one we love is not there. And that leaves these years, and that road that stretches out before us, just one long and lonely highway, devoid of any sights worth seeing or experiences worth having. Because by this time, we've learned that very little in life is worth a thing if you cannot share it with the one(s) you love. All it does is leave you one step beyond that pathetic co-worker who always comes to work and tells you, in agonizing detail, about his/her weekend, as if you were their very best friend in all of the world. Because, at least for them, you are. In fact, you probably are their only friend in all of the world, or at least the only person willing to listen to their incessant babbling.
You can't pour yourself into your work for that is a hollow, bottomless pit. And you have no reason to go home, for that, too, is an empty, hollow shell. All that is left for you is to be that loner, that person for whom company is rare, the one who must find solace, comfort and companionship with themselves. And accept that this is your lot in life for the years and, if you are unlucky, decades to come.
You can take some solace in this one fact: At least the road ahead is going to be shorter than the solitary, sad road you've already traveled.

DON'T LOVE ALONE

There are things you must do alone.
We are alone, more or less, when we are born. We are alone when we die. We are alone when we start school. We are alone when we step out into the working world.
Then there are things we choose to do alone. Some run alone. Others read alone. Many write alone. Some live alone, by choice. I like to bike alone, to work out alone, to think on my own, alone.
Some things, however, cannot be done alone. The greatest of these is love. You cannot love alone. You might think you can, that you can love someone who does not love you back, that you can have this relationship where one person loves and the other does not, but time will prove that this simply does not and cannot work.
It takes two to tango and two to love. Yes, you each may have, from time to time, varying depth and strength of love, the love may be more unconditional for one than for the other, or may be more accepting and forgiving with one than with another, but you both must love for the relationship to have any hope, any future. If just one of you loves, then this is going nowhere.
This means risking love by admitting your love to someone, by putting yourself out there, taking a chance on love, with the real possibility that you will be doing this alone and, therefore, be ultimately rejected.
In which case you will, once again, be alone. But you won't truly be in love anymore, because you'll know that what you felt was something else, something different. Because for there to be love, it must be shared and reciprocated.
So when you love, love with all your heart, but make sure you are loved in return.

TIME IS A WAVE

When I was younger I knew a lot more. Really. I did.
I knew what I wanted. I knew that I'd eventually find it. I knew I had a future. I knew I was ready for it. I knew my heart. I knew my mind. I knew there was a place for me in this world. And I'd know it when I found it.
Then time passed and my knowledge slowly evaporated. Until today, I know nothing. Or at least very little.
Oh, I know what I still want. I want to love and be loved. I no longer have to find it. I just have to figure out how to live without it and the woman who embodies it. I'm no longer certain there is a future for me. No am I ready for one if it does come along. I no longer know my own heart, since it resides in the woman who no longer seems to want it. As for a place in this world, increasingly there is none for me because time, it seems, has passed me by, like the breeze blows over the dandelion, leaving it shorn.
I used to think of time as a line, leading from here to there. It may not be a straight line, but it would lead from point to point to point, until, in time, it would take me where I was supposed to go.
Now I think of time as a tide. It rolls in, it rolls out. And only when it is at the right spot, when it has reached the farthest point, can you jump off and move onto another wave. Hesitate and you'll miss that chance and be stuck for a while, if not forever, on your present-day wave. Like it or not.
I had the chance to jump off and join the woman I love on a wave we would share. But she hesitated and so I hesitated and suddenly, stunningly, she was gone, carried away from me as her wave went one direction and mine in another. Never, I fear, to be carried to within our shared reach any time in the future.
Time, I once thought, was supposed to instill in us some wisdom, some knowledge that we would and could share with others. All time has taught me is that the longer I live, the less I really know. Instead, those waves of time seem to have eroded the knowledge I once had, leaving my mind and heart smoother and emptier than ever before.
And waiting, hoping, for her wave to return to this shore.

SWING FOR THE FENCES

As I approach yet another birthday, I again come to grips with the inevitable passing of time. And the aging that comes along with it. Nothing I can do will stop time from passing. Nothing I can buy or own or do will stop my body from aging.
Let's face it, we're all just heading for death, a day at a time.And there is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it.
Now that I have completely depressed you, let me just add one more thing: So go out there and love the one you love with all that you have, all that you are, all that you ever will be. If he or she does not want or accept your love, at least you can die knowing that you gave it everything you had -- heart, soul, mind and body. After all, it does absolutely no good to hold something back for "later," especially if "later" never comes around.
And yet I know that while anyone out there reading this is probably shaking their head yes, most of us will soon fall right back into our old habits of keeping some part of us -- our love, our energy, our thoughts, our passions -- in reserve, in hiding, to ourselves. Because we are so much like the kids playing Little League baseball: We're afraid to swing hard, to swing for the fences because we might miss. And that would be just too embarrassing.
Well, I say: Be embarrassing. Be daring. Give it your all. Put it all out there. Gamble everything on love. Yes, you might lose. Yes, the one you love might just spurn your love, laugh in your face, turn away, reject you. But the alternative is to spend the rest of your life wondering, like that kid in Little League, what would have happened if, just once, you'd swung with all your might.

NOT FOR ADULTS?

For some time now, I have believed that love, like so much else, is wasted on the young.
After all, who among us was wise enough at a young age to realize just how important and precious love is? And how many among us have, for reasons known only to the foolish young, spurned the great love of our lives, only to spend the rest of our lives hoping it will come back around to us once more?
More than a few, I am sure.
I am reconsidering that idea, however. Because while love may well visit us when we are older and wiser, that does not mean we will place as much importance or worth on love. In fact, age and experience may well make us even greater fools than our younger selves.
Because we may well forgo love for other, much less important things, such as security, peace (as in lack of temporary turmoil), harmony, even some adult form of peer pressure (as in "What will everyone think? That I'm some horny old (wo)man?"). Or we may just pass on having love because we think, well, that we're just too old for such nonsense.
Maybe only the young are able to risk it all for love. Maybe only they are able, in that youthful exuberance that believes anything is possible, to think love will make everything work out, that love can and will solve any and all problems that come along.
And maybe we, older adults, having lived through relationships that did not include love, simply don't want to endure the endless numbers of frogs we have to meet in order to find that one, singular prince(ss) who is out there, waiting for us. If, indeed, he/she is still out there at all.
Maybe love is not wasted on the young, but is a waste on those of us not so young anymore. For while the young may not realize that love doesn't just come around every day, if they truly do love someone at least they probably won't be afraid of giving it a shot. Lord knows, some of us "adults" certainly are. Some of us are more afraid of love than of a life lived without it.
And that, my friends, is truly a tragedy.

CHOOSE LOVE

If you awoke tomorrow and were told, in no uncertain terms, that you could go on living for another 50 years, but without love in your life, or you could have the love of your life but for only a brief period before you died, which would you choose?
None of us, of course, really gets that decision. None of us gets to know how long she or he has on this planet. We live out our days as if they go on forever even though we know, in our minds, that our time on the earth is finite. But how different would our choices and decisions be if we acknowledged that our time was, indeed, short?
Especially our decisions about love.
So often we put off love, ignore love or just consider it something we'll get around to one of these days. Or we spend our lives searching for some ideal love and miss out on the real love that is right in front of us. Then again, sometimes we find the love of our lives only to lose him or her because this other person is not ready, too afraid or simply not willing to risk everything for the possibility of a life filled with the love they honestly and earnestly seek.
You can make a lot of money, you can become an international success, or you can truly love someone. Which do you think is the greatest accomplishment?
You don't have to take my word for it, but I'll choose love.
Every time.

THE NOBLE THING

As a kid, I always admired the men in books, movies and TV shows who would do the right and noble thing, even if it was the exact opposite of what they wanted. They made sacrifice look good. And, unfortunately, they also tended to make it look easy.
So I grew up believing I could make that same sacrifice and do the noble and right thing if and when the time came. And there were times when I did, in small things and in small ways. And while it was harder than fiction had made it appear, I still handled it, thinking that the noble and right thing was not all that hard. Why didn't everyone act this way?
Then along came love. Not just "love," but "L-O-V-E-!" The love of my life, the end of a lifetime of searching, the one person around whom revolves my whole life and whole reason for living. It was then, and now, that I learned and am learning just how painful and difficult it is to do this right and noble thing, to put the needs and wants of the one I love ahead of anything I may desire. In my mind I know this is the right thing to do, but my heart hurts at the choice I must make and live with (although I would hardly call this living). In my mind I know I can do this because it is for her good and her good comes first, but in my heart I just want what I want, to love her and be with her and spend every moment of the rest of my life with her.
Instead I have had to let her walk way and only wait and hope that time, and God, will somehow bring us back together. And if that doesn't happen, then live out the rest of my days in misery, knowing only that I at least had some small period of time with the love of my life.
I am not giving up on her, or on the "us" that once existed. I am not quitting. I am doing what she asked of me, doing what she said she needs of me, because I still love her.
I am trying to do the right and noble thing, as hard and painful as that is. What I am learning is that it is one thing to choose the right and noble thing, but that is just the first step. The hardest part is living with your decision.

THIS IS TRUE

The king called all of his wisest men to the castle. As they stood before him, he gave them this charge: Find me one sentence that is true at all times.
Of course, this seemed an impossible task. Nothing, they thought, is true for all people, let alone true at all times. They spent days in deep thought and contemplation, pondering their dilemma. Exasperated, tired and out of ideas, they finally decided to go to the king and admit failure, uncertain what his reaction would be.
Then the oldest and wisest of their number raised a hand and told them to wait, for he had the answer. But he would not say what it was. Instead, he insisted they all approach the king together the following day.
When they did the king, clearly frustrated at the time they had spent thinking and he'd spent waiting, demanded an answer. The rest cowered as the king bellowed, but not the oldest and wisest. He simply waited for the king to calm down, then, bowing, said, "This, too, shall pass."
If life is good right now, remember that "this, too, shall pass." If life is very hard right now and you're at the end of your rope, just remember that "this, too, shall pass." Nothing, good or bad, endures forever. Everything changes eventually.
I think those wise men missed out on another statement that is true at nearly all times: "Love will find a way."
Love will find a way into your life. Love will find a way to change your life. Love will find a way into your heart. Love will find a way to hurt you. Love will find a way even when all else fails. Love will find a way, no matter how old or young you are. Love will find a way when things seem their most impossible.
Love will find way whether we want it to or not.
And love will find a way to leave us whether we want it to or not. Because, as the song writer once wrote, "love means watching someone die." To love someone is to watch them grow old and eventually leave this life, if they don't leave in other ways before then. Which is why, even though love will find a way, some people cannot accept or allow love into their lives and hearts. The love is there, waiting for them, ready to be with them, but they are too afraid to take the risk. They won't risk the pain of eventual loss for the reward of love, even if only for a brief while. For them there is no truth in the saying, "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all."
For them, love will only find a way to hurt them. And that they cannot risk.
Which is the greatest tragedy. Because, given a chance, "love will find a way."

INTRIGUING CREATURES

Women are God's most intriguing creatures. They are strong and yet fragile, beautiful and yet tough, the best of humanity and yet, sometimes, its worst. After all, what can be worst than a mother killing her own children? At the same time, what is better and more noble than the love most mothers have for all children, not just their own?
Women will always remain an unsolvable mystery to men. Much as quantum physics, they simply are beyond our comprehension. We can study them, watch them, listen to them, learn from them and yet we truly never will know them.
Which is why, I think, many women feel unfulfilled and lonely in their lives. Because not only do the men in their lives not understand them, those same men don't even try. Because we men, unfortunately, usually give up early in life even trying to grasp the meaning and purpose behind all manner of mysteries placed before us -- God, religion, science, the universe, the designated hitter, the knuckleball and, of course, women -- simply because they are beyond our feeble minds.
Worse yet, we tend to lump all women into that "unknowable" category, thereby cutting ourselves off from those whom we love as well as those we simply encounter in the world. And yet if we simply relaxed, listened and talked to the woman we love we might discover a level of understanding and comprehension heretofore unheard of in male-female relationships. We will never truly know her, but we can know and understand her better with each passing day, if we only are open to the experience.
Of course, most of us are at the point now where, after years of neglect, we'd have to convince the woman we love that we are seriously interested in her and want to know her better in order to get her to open up to us. If we can convince her to share her heart, soul and mind with us, however, we are in for incredible enlightenment.
Not that we have any hope of truly understanding everything that makes a woman, well, a woman. Not even the greatest male minds  -- Aristotle, Plato, Kafka, Einstein, Woody Allen -- have been able to grasp that ultimate mystery. But they, at least, welcomed the challenge.
Are you up to it?

WE ALL WANT LOVE, BUT ...

Men probably won't admit it, but we want love too. Maybe it is because women are supposed to want love above all that men act as though love was not vitally important to them too. But it is. We want to love and be loved for who we are. We want an honest, shared relationship with a woman who we love with all of our hearts and who will love us the same. We want to completely share our lives with the love of our lives.
So if men and women both want the same thing, then what is the problem?
Well, the problems are as many as the stars in the sky. Because, well, people are different. They come at this relationship issue from different experiences and different lives and bring different concerns and worries, wants and needs to this human equation. So maybe she finds it hard to trust others because she's been burned one too many times by untrustworthy men. Maybe he's gun shy about commitment because he's made the commitment before, only to be abandoned by a woman who found something and someone better.
Or maybe the two people are attracted to each other, but simply not compatible. They don't fit and aren't meant for each other. So even though what they want is the same, they aren't talking to each other in the same love language. She may as well speak Greek to a German, for all the good it will do them.
Then again, maybe everything is right and they fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, they love each other, care for each other deeply, want to spend the rest of their lives together and share so many experiences, likes and dislikes, interests and passions, but something spooks her and she runs away.
It simply is not enough to both want love. It is not enough to care for each other.
Because we all say that we want to love and be loved. We watch romantic movies and cry over lost love, swearing we'd get it right if only we got the chance. We read romance novels and feel empathy with the couple that gets to begin a life together.  And we wish we were them.
Until, that is, we get the chance. Then we choose safety and security over love. In fact, we'll opt for anything over love, given the choice, because choosing love is scary. It gives us the chills of fright. Better to live out a life without love than to take the chance. Better to stay put and wish and dream for love than to actually take the risk.
Yes, we all want love. But only when there is nothing to lose. And love is all about risking everything, putting it all on the line, to be with the one we love.
Risking that much, though, is just too much to ask. Isn't it?

WHAT LEGACY?

All of us are here for such a short time. We want to be shooting stars when mostly what we really are is dandelions. All we're really good for is a little "whine."
As we live out day after day, we ponder, if we take the time, our legacy. What will we leave behind when we go?
Some may think their children are their legacy. But that fails to consider that the children are trying to make their own way in this world and are worried about their legacy. They haven't time to be ours. Besides, do you think of the parents of the people you know whenever you see them?  No, you think about whether you like that person or not and whether or not you want to spend any time in their presence. You may think kindly of them, or not, but the odds are neither you nor anyone else they know thanks God, or curses God for their parents.
Some may consider their work to be a lasting legacy. But unless you are today's Rembrandt or Hemingway or Beethoven, or have your name permanently carved into the stone of a monument or building, what you do today will not last. The things you create, the work you do, the labors of your day will fade away faster than fog on a sunny day. Does anyone remember what you did last week, last month? How can you expect them to remember decades after you're gone?
I know you're thinking: He's going to tell us that loving people is our only true legacy.
Nope, I'm not.
Loving people is worthwhile, don't get me wrong, but those relationships, no matter how long or short, will not last a lifetime, let alone beyond. Out of sight, out of mind and heart. Once you're not around them every day, those same people will forget you and move on to other people because, after all, there's an entire world out there begging to be loved. It shouldn't be too hard to find someone else willing to give it a try, even if it isn't quite real love, just a substitute.
The odds are, none of us will leave a legacy of any kind, large or small. We're all just waves, crashing onto the shore of life and dissipating, disappearing as quickly as we arrive, rapidly replaced by yet another wave coming right behind us. Over time, if enough of us crash onto the same spot, something may get changed by erosion, but that is about it. And we will have played a very tiny part in it.
So don't live your life worried about what your legacy will be, because the chances are you won't be leaving one. Live your life today as if today is all you have and don't worry about tomorrow, let alone the years after you're dead. You won't matter then. You matter right now. So make something oof right now for yourself, because you're the only one who notices anyway.

ON THE DOWN SIDE OF BALANCE

I hope you didn't come here looking for answers, because I have none. Just more questions than I've ever had before in my life.
At one time I'd assumed that time taught us answers and removed some of the questions and doubts from our lives, but that doesn't seem to be the case for me. The longer I live, apparently, the less I really know. Because things I thought I knew when I was younger I now know to be more the hubris of youth than any real and concrete answer to life's nagging and troubling questions.
One thing time has done, however, is erode hope, faith and trust. When I was younger I believed things would get better, that I would get smarter, wiser and more accomplished. I also believed I would eventually find and be with the woman I love, that she was out there in the world somewhere and it was just a matter of finding her. And then not being in such a hurry that I missed the fact that she was the one.
I no longer hold on to such hope or have such faith, nor do I trust that, in time, all of this will make some sense to me and will help me become a better man. No, I have found that hope will linger a long time, but it fades as surely as dark clothes left drying in the sun. And faith grows thinner than a spider's thread when it is all that connects you to her, the woman of your dreams and the love of your life. And where I once trusted there was a reason for all of this, a purpose for everyone and everything, I now think that sometimes we suffer and lose just because, well, someone has to in order to keep everything in balance. That the only reason some of us don't get to be with the one we love is because somewhere else in the world two people who love each other are together. They won, we lost, and the standings have to balance so that for every couple that wins, another couple has to lose. For every person who gets to be with the one they love, there has to be someone who doesn't.
And I get to be one who doesn't.
The difference with me today is that I once used to think that, in time, I was going to get to be one of the winners, that one day I would wind up on the plus side of the ledger of love and life, that this dog, as it were, eventually would have his day. I don't believe that any more. I've come to accept that I always will be on the minus side, that winning simply is not in the cards for me, that this dog, as he is, will always be in the dog house. And nobody, especially the woman of my dreams, has any intention of letting me run free in the sunshine of her love.
But don't listen to me. Because I don't know a thing.

THINGS IN COMMON

When you choose a friend, do you choose someone completely different than you? Or do you tend to gravitate towards those with whom you share some common interests and maybe viewpoints?
Naturally, we tend to befriend those with whom we have at least some shared interests.
So why do we tend to wed people with whom we share few, if any, interests? Do we realy hope to build a life of common interests, discovered together? That is, I admit, a possibility. But is it not even more true that people with at least some shared interests are more likely to find something more in common thatn two people who have no foundation at the start?
I don't want to spend my life with someone exactly like me. That would be utterly boring. I do, however, want to spend my days with someone who shares some interests with me but who also will expose me to new things, new ideas, new insights and with whom I can discover things that we both enjoy. And maybe some things we both agree we don't like.
I want both a lover and a companion. And yet first we must be friends. I truly think the very best marriages I know are those between people who truly are each other's best friends. These are people who sometimes were friends first before they became lovers. And while I had often thought it impossible for a friend to turn into a lover, I now think that such a miracle can occur. And it is a miracle we should all seek.
For when the passions cool, as they will in time, and life takes on its daily routine, who would you rather be with? Someone you hardly know with whom you share few or no interests? Or a best friend with whom you can sit and talk, do things together and know that she is having just as much fun at it as you are?
I choose the latter. To me that is the only kind of relationship that truly lasts.

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE

In an era of 50-percent divorce rates, I wonder how many of those separations are caused by an unwillingness on one or more parties to give and take, to compromise, and how many of these are simply the result of bad choices and decisions.
Take, for instance, the woman who was truly in love with one man but then got a little too possessive and lost him. In an effort to win him back, she tried to make him jealous and wound up marrying the rebound relationship she began, even though she knew she did not love this second man.
Or the woman who was infatuated or in love -- it depends on whom you ask -- with a guy her sister was dating. Eventually the sister and the guy break up, but not before this woman gets pregnant with another guy she was dating at the time and winds up married to him.
Or consider the guy who naively believes that, well, he's supposed to be married by a certain age. After years of being unable to even land a date, he falls into a relationship with a woman. It is his first relationship and yet he thinks this must be it, so he marries her, even though he gets a barrage of signals warning him that this relationship just isn't right. For him, though, time and a sense of requirement -- as in, "this is what you are supposed to do next" -- are of the essence, so he acts against his own better judgment.
Or consider the woman who, walled off from a potentially loving relationship by a possessive and controlling boyfriend, weds the same boyfriend because at the time safety and security weighed more heavily on her mind than the need for love, in large part because this boyfriend kept love from her. As they say, however, where there is a marriage without love, there will be love without a marriage. And in her case, she found love years later.
While economics and changes in society have allowed more people the freedom to wait longer for the right person to come along, I think we still make mistakes at least half of the time. But where previous generations simply endured the mistakes they made, we now have the liberty to end what is wrong and continue to search for what is right.
That does not mean the search is ever easy. I truly believe there is one person on this planet for whom we were made, that one perfect match we were born to love. When we meet this person we will know it beyond a shadow of even the slimmest doubt, making us realize just how precious and rare this discovery is.
That said, there still are people in the world whom we could love, at least to a degree; people who are not the one, not our soulmate, not our perfect match. We might wind up with one of them if we have not the patience to keep looking or the willingness to trust that, yes, out there somewhere in the world is the person who is absolutely right for me. These other people would not be complete mismatches or totally imperfect for us, but in settling for them we could miss out on the most incredible and most important experience of our lives.
And we might well wind up being in the wrong 50 percent of couples today.

LET'S DO THIS TOGETHER

Relationships are never, ever 50-50, no matter how much we may want them to be.
I say "may" because I'm not sure any of us has ever experienced or known a truly 50-50 relationship, so how can we ever know that is what we want? I think most of us would just like a 60-40 or 70-30 relationship, as long as the ratio is flexible and yet never rises to the 90-10 or 95-5 area ever.
I just think we all want a relationship where nearly everything is shared. No one thing is always mine to do and no one thing is always yours to handle. I can cook and clean, as can you. You can pay the bills and mow the lawn, and so can I. And as often as possible, we tackle these tasks together. But, when we're both working and both trying to run a home together, there will be times when I haven't the time and times when you haven't a second to spare, and that is when our partner, our true co-worker steps in to handle the burden, both of us realizing this is only a temporary arrangement.
That does not mean that no one "owns" anything. We each "own" our part of each responsibility. If I am making the salad, then I take pride and responsibility for doing it well. If you are making the roast, you do it to the best of your ability and can be proud of how well it turns out. But when we sit down for this meal, we each will be sharing our gifts and our energies with each other, in a way me feeding you and you feeding me.
If we perform our daily tasks with our partner in mind, and our partner sharing the job, then do we not feel closer to them with every job that gets done? And do we not mesh our very selves into everything we do, nothing all-me and nothing all-you but everything all-us?
I know of adults -- parents mostly -- who strive so hard to make everything equal for their children, as if the world were going to treat everyone equally. We should not strive for equality in our relationships but for equity, for a reasonable and personal sharing of the daily and regular jobs in our lives so that when those jobs are over we can both take pride in a job well done and both share in the free time left to us.
Left to us. As a couple. As partners. As co-workers. As co-accomplishers. As one.

IF DEATH WERE NEAR ...

Everyone here is dying, whether we like it or not.
We cannot prevent it and we try not to think about it, but it is an indisputable fact of life. All of us are dying.
The only unknown is how fast we are dying. Will we die today? Tomorrow? Fifty years from now? We don't know and because we don't know we tend to live as if we will do so forever when, if we let ourselves think about it, we know that cannot be true.
I often wonder how much differently we'd all live if we knew when we would die. How would that effect our work? Our relationships? Our attitudes? Would we hate less, or more? Would we love more easily or even more restrictively than we do now? Would there be less poverty and less hoarding if we knew when we were to leave this life?
But we don't know, can't know and so we go on living as if we have years not minutes, decades and not hours or days left. We place great importance in things that will not last and little or no importance on the things that will. We hold desperately onto items and objects and readily dismiss and distance ourselves from people and relationships.
And we act as if love were something to take or leave, more often leaving than taking. Because, we figure, time will bring it around again and, if not, we'll find it somewhere farther down the line in someone else we have yet to meet.
I often think to myself, if I knew I was to die tomorrow, what would I be doing today? And while I know I cannot live my entire life that way, because to do so would be to give away everything and to live the rest of my life in poverty (though I am not certain that would necessarily be a bad thing), if I can carry a little of that reality, a little of that thinking into my everyday world, perhaps it will make me a better, more loving person.
Even if the rest of the world lives as if there are thousands of tomorrows to come.

WOMEN ARE STRONG

I chafe when a man calls his wife or girlfriend "the little woman" because the term diminishes her. I object when a man calls his wife "the old ball and chain" because he's belittling her and making her look overbearing and warden-like.
I also am bothered by terms like "the fairer sex" and the "the weaker sex" because I think they underestimate and overgeneralize. Yes, there are women who are fairer than men and women who are weaker then men or even other women. Does that mean the entire gender should be painted with that brush? I think not.
Science has shown that when it comes to pure physical strength, women cannot equal or exceed man. That said, there are men who are weak and women who are strong, just as there are men who are strong and women who are weak. And there are a whole lot of the rest of us somewhere in between. There are women I would not want to arm wrestle. And there are men whom I could easily beat, and I am certainly no body builder.
Most women I know, however, are far stronger mentally and emotionally than men. Yes, I said emotionally. You may be thinking of times when the woman you know has gone deep into the well of her emotions and thought surely men are stronger since, after all, we are trained not to show our emotions much, if at all. But if we men had the same levels of hormones coursing through our blood and occasionally spiking, we'd all be emotional basket cases, believe me. And while we men pride ourselves in being able to lift and carry more weight than the women we know and love, which one of us could endure the labor and pain of childbirth? None. Absolutely none. And yet women often endure it not once, but several times. Now which is the stronger sex?
I do think women, as a rule, strive to be fairer and to seek fairness in most things. While that term "the fairer sex" was not referring to that, I do think the label in that form might apply in general. Men tend to consider that life is never fair so why bother. Women, realizing life's innate unfairness, try to at least provide some balance to the otherwise unfair lives of those they love. It is not unlike trying to stem a raging flood with a teacup, but you have to give them credit for trying.
Women also have the innate ability to be more empathetic than the males of this world. I don't mean to imply that all women are more empathic than men, just that I think they are given the gift for greater empathy than men. Some exercise that gift and others do not. A woman I know, when faced with her own personal, emotional and relational burdens, still thinks first of how she can be more for those around her, whether they are family, friends or nearly complete strangers. She sees herself, and God, in those around her. And she sees with empathetic eyes that few others I know will ever have.
We men may have been blessed by our Creator with the brute muscular strength to move mountains, or at least small molehills, but women have been graced with a strength, a depth of emotion, an empathy and a spirit that we can only envy. Women are a living marvel. And we are so lucky they are all around us.

MEMORY

I haven't lived in that house for nearly two decades and yet I not only remember the address, I also remember the phone number I had when I lived there.
Memory is a funny thing. Sometimes you can't remember what you were about to say, or where you put the car keys you used yesterday and yet your memory can recall, with distinct and intricate detail, something that happened years, if not decades ago.
A friend once said she thought something was wrong with her because she was, she said, so forgetful. I told her that the mind gets filled with so many things to remember as we get older that we are bound to shove the less crucial things to the side and keep those memories we deem important where we can easily access them. Hence, she might forget where she put her cell phone because, for her, it simply is a tool. A young person, on the other hand, might never lose track of that device because, for them, it is a lifeline to friends and the outside world.
On the other hand, she might recall with great clarity a night spent with a friend while a young person might forget a friend's name.
It is all a matter of what really matters.
Which is why, on this day, I am remembering the birth of someone special, someone so amazing and so incredible. She no longer is in my life, but she will always be in my mind and in my heart. For there is no more important person on the planet to me and no one who can or will ever take her place. She is a singularity, a shining star, a walking, talking miracle.
Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades may pass, but she will never leave my memories. Which is why this day, this date will never go unnoticed, nor will her birth or the mother who bore her go unhonored. For on this day love came into the world and, in time, into my life. And nothing is more important than that.

LEARNING TO TRUST

All of my life I have trusted God.
Whatever came at me in life, I just tried to give it my best and let God take care of the rest. I assumed my best was all God could or would ever want.
I was okay with that arrangement. I'd do my best at everything and God would take care of the rest. It helped, of course, that the answer or result of such things came fairly quickly. There was no waiting for weeks or months or even years on end for Him to act or decide. He gave me enough patience to wait for everything else.
All during this time, I was waiting for love. I just assumed it was out there, somewhere, in the form of the right woman and that I would meet her at the right time and from that point on we would both love each other the best we could and we'd let God take care of the rest. I had no reason to doubt this would happen.
Life is never that simple, nor that easy.
God brought love into my life and just as quickly took it away. I'm still trying to figure out why. Was it something I did? Didn't do? Was it just the wrong time? Or is there some other reason why this didn't work out? Or is this simply a delay in the final decision? I still don't know and the not knowing has shaken my trust in God.
You see, it took a series of miracles just to bring the two of us together. It took even more miracles to open us up to each other. And the final miracle -- love itself -- seemed to convince me that this was ordained to happen by Him (or Her, if you prefer). So when it all fell apart, I was left wondering what was the point. Why perform all of these miracles in the lives of two people just to separate them? That just doesn't make much sense to me.
I've been mentally wrestling with this quandary ever since she walked out of my life. The part of me that recognizes the miracles feels the need to step in and do something to get her back. The more logical side of me sees the folly in that since such actions most certainly would only serve to push her further away.
What this calls for is trust. I have to trust in God as I have never trusted before. That's because the answer, if one indeed is ever coming, is not bound to arrive anytime soon. No, this is going to take a long time if it is ever to happen. I have to put my trust in Him and go on with my meager existence (I cannot in good conscience call anything without her in it a "life"), hoping one day He will reveal His plans to me.
I realize we each have free will and that maybe this is her expression of that ability, rejecting me and us. But this, then, is my exercise of free will. I choose to trust in God and to wait, as long as it takes, to see if maybe time will bring her back to me. If not, then too bad for me. If not, then God wasted some pretty amazing miracles just to give two people a short shot at love.

LOVE CAN'T BE FORCED

Love, I believe, is something we all seek.
Some of us search for it in money, believing a lot that will bring us a lot of love. Some of us search for it in sex, thinking if we give that away enough, sooner of later someone who receives it will love us. Some of us search for it in education, thinking if we were only smart enough, someone surely will love us. Some of us search for it in beauty, thinking that if we are just perfectly beautiful, then someone will love us.
Others become so disenchanted that they abandon the search completely for an antidote of alcohol and drugs to numb the unending ache. Others become so afraid of the risks that love demands that they cower in a shell of their own making, too fearful to even stick their heads out to see if the sun of love might shine on them.
And yet others, so unsure of what love is, grab the first thing resembling love and marry it, only to realize all too late that what they have is not love at all, but just a big mistake.
Much as we want and much as we try, one thing we simply cannot do is make someone love us or make ourselves love someone. It would be akin to making the sun rise at midnight or turn the ocean into a parched desert. We cannot change that which is out of our control, and those whom we love and whom love us is not within our power. It is beyond us and yet part of us. It is within us and within others and yet more than the sum of any two people in love.
We may love someone who, for reasons we cannot understand, either cannot or will not love us back. Or maybe they are too afraid to risk everything for love, preferring the safety of that shell. Oh, we can prod them and poke at them and even try to entice them to leave the safety of that shell. That may work, briefly, until their fears overwhelm them or they sense that pain and hurt are just around the corner.
But wouldn't it be so much better if they chose, of their own free will and when they were ready, to come out of that same shell and greet you, lovingly, the way you want it to be? Is not far better for them to realize love is something they want too and that they are now ready to take the risk? And if they cannot shake their fears, cannot find the courage to leave the safety of their shell -- a shell of their own making -- is it not better to continue to love and wait and hope, rather than to prod, poke and pester? Would you rather this person, in time, to remember you as someone who never stopped loving them or to always think of you as the person who simply would not leave them be? Would you rather be hated in the long term or loved forever?
You decide.
But you cannot make them love you, not until they and their heart are ready. So either be patient and hope they eventually will see you for who you are or be a pest and then they truly will hate you for what they think you are.

LOVE IS THE CURRENCY WE SPEND

Once, on a trip to Maine, I tried lobster. After all, "when in Rome, ..." And since people pay such a high dollar nearly everywhere else for this delicacy, I figured I might as well partake of it in the state where so many are caught.
I didn't like it. I found it rubbery and tasteless, kind of like a flavorless chewing gum.
You may well like lobster and, if you do, then all the more for you. I just won't be ordering it anytime in the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, I tried gyros while at a Greek restaurant in Toronto and loved them. I just have to figure out if I can find a similar eatery near my home and also determine if I can fix this tasty dish at home.
How I feel about those two foods are often the way we feel about people. Right or wrong, there are people whom we can take or leave, preferring to leave. And there are people we just love, no matter what.
Do not misunderstand me, the former group is not made up of people we hate or abhor, for those emotions are far too similar to love in that they are passions stirred up. No, the former group is filled with those people for whom we have no strong feelings at all -- not love nor hate, like nor dislike; more indifference than anything else.
My father once spoke about his time in the military and said he learned one thing about life from it. When he walked into the barracks for the first time, he said, he realized there were about five or six guys he liked right away and about five or six he didn't like right away. The rest were, as he said, "in the middle." And when boot camp was over, he said, a few of the "liked" five or six had moved to the "disliked" five or six and vice versa. But no one had left the middle.
The challenge in life, sometimes, is in doing something caring and loving for any of those people for whom we have no strong interest. If you don't love someone, it can be very difficult to want to do them any favors, especially if it means going well out of your way. If you don't like them, chances are they will never ask anything of you. Ironically, a person for whom you really have no interest at all, about whom you have no strong feelings, can land on your "disliked" list if they ask too much of you too often. What bothers you isn't the person, so much as their uncanny ability to constantly ask for things or services. They may just be trying to constantly get your attention in a cloying and demanding way without being able to accept that they simply are not on your personal radar.
On the other hand, a person you love can ask for anything and you will do everything in your power to get it for them, no matter how difficult or demanding the request. Even if they ask you to never speak to them again, you may try to talk them out of it but you will do your best to honor that request, despite the personal pain you feel, all because of the love you have for them.
Love, in the end, makes all of the difference in our personal relationships. Giving to the ones we love is easy, even when it is not. Giving to someone we don't care about at all can be trying and difficult, largely because we do not love them. For it is love that we give when we do for others and it is hard to give love to someone for whom we don't feel any love. Love is the currency we spend and we spend it best with those we love.

WHEN WE MEET AGAIN

We both had to attend the event so we knew we would see each other.
And yet never before have I felt so uncertain of how to act with her, around her, near her. Was I to be friendly? Stand-offish? Pretend I don't know her at all? Or act in some other way entirely?
She and I had gone from a relationship of open, frank and honest communication, all of it wrapped in a gentleness and kindness the likes of which I have never before known and never will again, to complete and utter isolation. Where we once knew what each other was thinking and feeling, even when simply talking online, now neither of us could read the other.
So when I saw her, checking in at the event, I did not know how to act. She waved, but was it to me or to the person who was helping her find her nametag? The last time I'd seen her, from a slight distance, she'd appeared to be angry at the sight of me, so I could only assume she would not be thrilled to see me at this event, even though I was fairly certain my presence was no surprise to her.
By the time the event was over, things were not clearer but more confused. There was no time to talk alone, even for a minute, to shed even a sliver of light on what was, or was not, going on between us or how either of us was to act if and when any similar meetings occur in the future.
Since that time, some months ago now, I cannot help but recognize just how easily interpersonal relationships can get twisted and screwed up by misread signals and miscommunication.
I used to think that such things were beyond us, that we had established such a solid foundation of communication and trust and honesty that we'd never be the victims of mixed signals. And maybe, if we had kept those lines of communication open and the information freely flowing between us, that would be true. At the same time, though, I also thought we knew each other so well that we'd always feel deeply in touch and that we'd always be able to read each other's faces, minds and hearts, even from across a crowded ballroom.
But, as with so many relationship issues, I was so terribly wrong.
First of all, in times of interminable silence, the heart and mind fill in the gaps. What gets tossed into those gaping holes tends to be all the worries, fears, anxieties and doubts we've ever had, along with some nightmares and a few really bad ideas. And the only thing that can really dispel this darkness of the heart and soul is the light of communication and sharing. Without that, all manner of horrible thoughts creep in so that, when finally face-to-face again, even the smallest gesture, or the hint of a gesture, is subjected to intense scrutiny and examination until it is deemed to be the proof of something hideously horrible. In no time at all, people who once deeply and profoundly trusted and cared for each other are more wary and frightened than two longtime combatants.
Secondly, we need to realize, when placed in such situations, that neither of us is acting like we would, or could, if we were simply alone with this other person. No, there are other people around and so neither of us is being ourselves anyway. But where we would have linked arms and attacked the task of being at this event as a team before, we now face the event alone and each other alone, but in this stifling crowd. So unless we can fashion a moment of privacy to speak to each other, it is going to be a strain on both of us and no one is themselves when under such stress. So we should not read too much, if anything, into our behavior in such situations. Wait, instead, for a time alone to talk. Or simply wash what happens at such events from your memory completely, because it was not real or honest.
Finally, we both need to realize we cannot assume, as we once did, that the other person knows what we are thinking and feeling. The lines of communication once between us have been frayed so that, at best, only partial thoughts, feelings, emotions and ideas are getting through. She can no longer look at my face and see my every thought and feeling on it. And I cannot look into her eyes and know what she is thinking at this very moment. Maybe some day we can rebuild those lines. But we should never assume they still are feeding us correct and clear information until then.
It is very hard to go from being so intimately connected to being isolated and cut off from each other. It is even harder then to find yourselves thrust together in an uncomfortable and unfriendly setting where communication remains strained and difficult, and most certainly not intimate and honest.
So try to keep your mind from thinking the worst of her and may she not think the worst of you.
At least until you both can speak easily and freely to each other, face to face.

KNOWN VS. UNKNOWN

The father spoke, saying how this winter had been better than the last. Last year he and his wife suffered as they watched their teenage son suffer with an unknown ailment. He had trouble eating and, as an athlete, nourishment is crucial.
This winter, he said, is better because while there is no known cure for what his son has, at least they all know what troubles him. And that makes it tolerable and, for the son, endurable. Because there are measures he can take to minimize the problem.
There are times when the unknown is frightening. In a dark, unfamiliar house. In a strange city after dark. When encountering someone new. When starting a new job. When lost and disoriented.
But there are other times when the unknown is better than the known. At least in some ways.
I have spent years searching for love. I always hoped it was out there, hoped that somewhere along the way I had not missed it through sheer stupidity or naivete. But I did not know whether I'd find it, if it even was out there for me, or if I would recognize it if, indeed, fate and God brought it to me.
Nor did I know what truly and completely loving someone was like.
But then love came into my life, beautifully and amazingly. And I now know just how utterly life-changing that experience is. While I never would surrender a moment with the woman I love for anything this world has to offer, I also know now what I was missing. And, because she has since left my life, I also live daily with the knowledge of what love feels like, how it transforms us in immutable ways and how you cannot erase the permanent change to your heart.
For now I not only know there is a woman out in this world whom I love more than life itself, but I also know that I must live out the rest of my days without her, that I must replace that sense of the unknown with the certainty of the known and the lost. I now know that love is out there, in the world. I know where that love lives and what she looks like, how she thinks, who she really is. And that information is utterly mine and utterly useless because she no longer wants to be in my life or be with me.
They say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. I would not disagree with that, since I truly believe love is the most precious and important gift we can give or receive. But I also know, from years of experience, that sometimes it is better to not be sure that love, for you, is out there at all. Because once you know, and once you love, there is no forgetting. And no going back.

ENJOY THE RIDE

The sign, standing in the front yard of what once was a home but now is a doctor's office, usually proclaims, in its stuck-on black letters, the visit of a medical specialist, the day and time for a health class, some get-healthy tip or just blanket support for the local school's athletic teams.
For the past few weeks, however, it has told everyone driving past that "Life is what we make of it."
As inspirational messages go this one hardly merits a second glance. It is not clever, nor is it witty, nor does it offer some double meaning that takes the driver a few blocks to get. It seems simple enough and probably is something nearly everyone passing by has heard or read before.
But it is an outright, bald-faced lie.
It insinuates that we, the readers, have some control over life, our own and those of the people whose lives intersect with ours, either for a moment or for a significant part of their and our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth.
You may think you can control your own life, but remember that thought the next time your car breaks down for no explainable reason. Or the next time your get ill and can't figure out how that happened. Or the next time someone walks into your life and walks right back out of it. You have no control over your own life, so what gives anyone the false impression they can make life into something? Only signs like this one and those delusional self-help people who believe that we can be anything we want to be.
Don't misunderstand, much can be accomplished by those with a singular mindset and the drive and determination to stay with a project or plan and to never give up on themselves or the goal they seek. But for every one of those who succeed, there are many who toil on for an entire life with the same fortitude and determination and singularity of thought and never even made headway. Luck, fate, good fortune and the blessings of Almighty God play a larger role in this than most of us give credit.
You cannot control your own life and you most certainly cannot control others, though most of us would rather control others than control ourselves. You cannot, for instance, make someone love you. You can love them without condition or reservation, wholly and completely and do so with honesty, openness and sincerity, and they still might just walk away. You have no control over their reactions or the personal history that led them to you and, eventually, beyond you. You cannot control family members who, even though you love them, may make decisions that take them a continent or continents away from you, possibly into harm's way.
If these things happen you not only cannot control what happens to them, you cannot control how what happens to them will effect you. You are as much a prisoner of their lives and they are of yours. Because when you truly care for someone, they become so important to you that you feel their pain, you ache for them, you hurt for them, you still care for them, you worry about them, you think constantly of them. It doesn't matter that they no longer are directly part of your life, they remain a cog in your heart, turning and churning your emotions even from a distance.
So don't for a single second think you can control life and make what you want of it. As the great auto racer Jackie Stewart said, when asked what he recommended drivers do when involved in a spin (turn into the spin or turn away from it?), he said it was best just to sit back and enjoy the ride. That is the best we can do in life. That ride may at times be bumpy, at other times smooth, at times thrilling and exciting and at other times monotonous and boring, but it is wrong-headed and silly of us to think for a single moment that we have the wheel and the pedals. We are just passengers, along for the ride.

TRY SOME SILENCE

Silence, the saying goes, is golden.
Never was that more true than in today's hectic, connect-at-all-costs world. We cannot take a step without one ear attached to a cell phone or iPod. We cannot seem to turn off the television, the computer or any of the other devices that assault our senses every second of the day. We are an ADHD nation, it seems, utterly addicted to the "now," as in "what might be going on now?" We simply have to know the latest dirt on everyone, the latest and freshest tidbit on neighbors and movie stars, family members and music makers. We simply have to know.
But we never seem to stop and ask ourselves why we need all of this mostly useless information, nor wonder if there is even a shred of accuracy in any of it.
Worse yet, we never seem to stop, shut it all away, and listen to the silence. We never seem to really stop and just think. Or not think.
This hyperactivity spills over to our conversations, if, indeed, people talking nonstop can be called a conversation. Not only do we seem to abhor silence, seeing it as void and empty instead of understanding its importance to thought, contemplation and understanding, but we also seem to be adverse to listening when we can just speak instead. For one person to talk, someone should be listening. But if one person does all of the talking and one does all of the listening, then you have a monologue, not a conversation. Conversation is the sharing of thoughts and ideas, with each person taking the time to listen as well as talk. And each considers thoughtfully what the other has said before responding. That happens all too seldom today as we rush to get our two cents into each and every exchange we encounter.
But we can change. We can put the brakes to this headlong rush into unlimited and untried information. We can stop for a second and just listen, take in what is being said and spend a minute or two thinking about it before responding. We also can take some time each and every day to sit in silence, in the quietest place we can find, to think, to consider, to ponder, to mull, to wonder, to question and just to shut out the hubub of noise and input and questionable information swirling about us at a frenetic pace all day, every day.
Try it and see if your head, and your thoughts, aren't a whole lot clearer as a result.

BE BEAUTIFUL

You are beautiful.
Yes, you. You are beautiful. Just accept that, own that, believe that. Because it can make all the difference in your world.
You see, a person who believes they are beautiful is beautiful on the inside. And that brings out an inner glow in them that is unmistakable and unforgettable. And -- now here's the radical part -- once you truly believe you are beautiful you actually become beautiful.
On the other hand, if you walk around in a bad frame of mind -- grumpy, depressed and down all of the time -- then you can be Miss Universe on the outside and you will be increasingly ugly on the inside. And you will become even more ugly as you age. Just trust me on this. I knew a woman who was a true beauty when she was young -- I saw her high school senior photo -- but let her life turn ugly and then let the ugliness consume her through smoking, alcoholism, divorce and an ugly attitude until she was the exact opposite of that early photo.
It can be hard to defeat the ugliness life throws at us. I know another woman who has endured a lot of ugliness in her life, from the time she was a little child until now, as an adult, but wages a daily war against the stooges of bitterness, anger and hatred while also fighting the forces of depression. Because of that, she is able to retain a giving, loving heart and remains an incredible beauty because of the woman she is inside.
Life continues to throw some awful things her way, constantly testing her inner beauty. From time to time she suffers losses in this ongoing war, but she remains constant in her belief that she will not give in to the bitterness and anger that lap at her heels.
For that alone, she is brave, strong and beautiful.
So believe me when I tell you that you are beautiful. Because you are. And you will be even more beautiful the moment you embrace your inner and outer beauty.
Then you will shine like never before, radiating beauty to the entire world around you. And people will notice your beauty and be awed by it and by you.
Which is only the least that you deserve. After all, you ARE beautiful.

EVERYONE HURTS

No one gets through life unscathed. Everyone gets hurt eventually.
We get rejected. We get ignored. We get ridiculed. We get beaten. We get our hearts broken.
And life insists we move on, that we cope, that we adapt, the we deal with it. And we do, more often than not, by closing ourselves off from people, by enclosing our fragile, still-hurting parts behind a wall of stone that no one will ever be allowed to penetrate. We learn to live by the Irish lesson: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
We swear in silent oaths to ourselves that we will never let that happen to us again, all while blaming ourselves for it happening in the first place. We should have seen it coming. We should have known better than to trust that person. We should have realized we just aren't worthy of love, of happiness, of the life we seek.
We look at ourselves in the mirror and wonder: What in the world could anyone see in me? Why would anyone in their right mind be attracted to me? Why wouldn't she reject a loser like me?
What we often fail to realize is that the other person is hurting too, that they also have suffered hurts that drive them to act as they do. Whether by intent or by instinct, they are trying to protect themselves from pain and anguish. They, too, feel unworthy, unwanted, unloved and unlovable. In fact, they may be rejecting you in a pre-emptive strike, certain that in time you will reject them if they stay. So they reject first so that they can avoid being rejected.
If only each of us could honestly share our heart's aches and longings, pains and sufferings, hopes and dreams, triumphs and tragedies, and know that what we share is kept in a sacred trust, never to be shared with anyone else, maybe we could avoid more rejection, more hurt, more suffering by us and others.
Each and every one of us has been hurt. Each of us is scared. Each of us is afraid to open ourselves to yet another rejection. Each and every one of us is capable of an amazing, deep and powerful love. We want to share that love with someone, the right someone.
To do so, however, requires us to let down our guard, to knock down our walls, to open our hearts up to another, to be willing to be hurt and rejected again.
It can be an awful lot to ask. But the reward is well worth the risk. And the potential rejection.

LOVE IS A WELL

Love is a well that cannot be capped.
Once tapped, love flows from the heart until death, or until there remains no love in the heart.
But you cannot tap the love inside your heart. Nor can just anyone drill into the heart to make love flow. Your will cannot make love surge out of your heart for someone. Nor can just anyone come along and, like a wildcatter, make love burst from your heart like oil from a gushing well.
No, only the right person can make love come pouring out of your heart. And you will know this person because the very sight of them will make your heart beat faster, will make you long to be with them, will make their life and them the very center of your world. You will know by how empty and meaningless life is when then are not part of it, when they are absent or missing. You will know by how thoughts of them fill every empty moment of every day and how thoughts of them carry over into the dreams of the night. You will know by how you awaken every day to thoughts of them and fall asleep each night with prayers for and dreams of them.
You will know them because they are the answer to hundreds of spoken and unspoken prayers and the embodiment of a lifetime of dreams.
Still, the love you have for them remains trapped inside your heart until the day when they lower their drill, and their guard, and let you see that they, too, have feelings for you. For only by being vulnerable to each other, open to each other, trusting of each other can a heart truly be pierced so the love can flow.
When that happens you both are drenched in its warmth and swept away on the emotional wave. But you take that voyage together, hand in hand, until you reach the shore of a life that you will share.
Unfortunately, sometimes one person wants to sail onto this sea of love to find that life while the other does not. Because they are afraid -- to love, to be loved, to share love, to trust someone else for the rest of their life, or because they have been so hurt in the past that they cannot risk being hurt ever again.
That is when the love flows on and on, pouring out of your heart, but offering no solace, no comfort, no peace. Only the ache where the drill landed, where your heart was pierced, where, for a moment, dreams came to life and prayers were answered.
And where, now, there is only the constant gurgling of love, flowing out of your heart and into an empty, meaningless, bottomless-pit of a life.