The V-Word

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” -Robert Heinlein

It turns out that showing up for your partner in the happy moments of life might create more staying power in your relationship than being a reliable support in hard times. While we all need someone at our back when things are rough, it is actually having someone truly celebrate our...

“We are all only mortal…we do only what we can do. All the Elemental priests have certain teachings in common: one of them is that everyone, every human, every bird, badger, salamander, every blade of grass and every acorn is doing the best it can. This is the priests’ definition of mortality: the circumstance of doing what one can is that of doing one’s best. Only the immortals have the luxury of furlough. Doing one’s best is hard work; we rely on our surroundings because we must; when our surroundings change we stumble.” -Robin McKinley “Chalice”

I have read and re-read that passage many times this weekend. In this beautiful story of people trying to fulfill their tasks despite their limitations, the master in the story tells this to his chalice after having just come back to himself. I won’t say more, because it is a lovely read, but it has made me think of the moments when I have been able to truly come back to myself. The times when I have had the ability to accept the outcome of a situation, win or lose, because I knew deep down that I had done my best.

I have also noticed how and when I am unable to come back to myself. I have been paying attention to the moments when my doing what I can does not feel like enough. The places where I cannot witness the best I can do happen, not surprisingly, when I stand next to someone who seems to be doing better. Yesterday, my son played a tennis match against one of the top junior players in the world. My son is a good player and yesterday was his first match in six months due to a stress fracture.

“She glanced this way, I thought I saw… And when we touched, she didn’t shudder at my paw. No, it can’t be; I’ll just ignore… But then, she’s never looked at me that way before…” –The Beast

Every member of the family can view January’s Sustainable Love Movie of the Month. Walt Disney’s Beauty and The Beast (1991) is considered a classic animated film and received rave reviews from many a critic....

“Half of the troubles of this life can be traced to saying yes too quickly and not saying no soon enough.” -Josh Billings

I have never been very good at defining boundaries in life. The resources of time and energy were never something that I measured in terms of my ability to give or not. I remember being shocked when an acquaintance once told me that they knew they could never have enough...

The system reset button can be found in the center of an orgasm. It is a mysterious cascade of chemicals and reactions that are energetic but also biological. Think of the lucky among us who were conceived in the power of that center. I had several children arrive from the event. For many years my sex drive was often wrapped in my drive to procreate. The sex took a wild leap the year that I had...

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”-Confucius

One of the personality traits that I most aspire to is resilience. I have long admired the people who face seemingly unbeatable circumstances with some magical blend of inner confidence and an abiding trust in things to work out. They don’t worry about things that can keep some of us up at night and in...

“The only thing worthy of you is compassion -invincible, limitless, unconditional.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

A comment on a recent positivity post came to mind today when I was watching the tragic post-earthquake unfold in Haiti. A reader wrote in and said that all the positivity babble in the world won’t change the suffering in the world one iota. The positivity quest is no different than Dale...

“Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.” –George Washington

Scientific research has demonstrated that just one person’s negative energy can significantly reduce the productivity in a work group. Likewise, when one person in a couple consistently is negative, it is very difficult for the relationship to thrive. The...

“Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” Confucius

The habits we form in life tend to form us. Our lives and the behaviors that shape them tend to be habitual. Partly because we like consistency and because change is challenging our habits start to resemble our personalities or maybe our personalities are really just a bundle of our most dedicated habits. I have read that...