There's love and there's love...

....Relationships, by and large, involve conditional love. No matter how much one person loves another, they can usually bring themselves to stop if the other person behaves badly enough. A particularly tolerant soul may forgive more... but the kind of love that flows between two people, wonderful though it may be, is not the kind of love that makes the world go round.

That's love for life itself.

Great relationships aren't built in a day.  Great relationships are built daily.

I was made aware of this quite recently....

.....In some cultural traditions, buildings are deliberately left unfinished. Even if the entire structure is an intricate work of art, one little section is kept incomplete. This is a spiritual gesture, an acknowledgement of the idea that there's always room for improvement!

   

Nothing is ever as good as it can get. When we claim to have it all or pretend that we have solved all our problems, we are kidding ourselves. To be human is to wrestle with incompatible urges. Something in your world may be far from complete. Yet that doesn't mean it isn't still perfect in its own way.

Be as you wish to seem.   (Socrates)

Loving someone or....

..... knowing that they love you is not a licence to abuse or antagonise them. It is never okay to hurt someone's feelings, just because you suspect that you will be 'safe', even if you do.

 

We all need to learn to show each other more respect and to treat the people we are closest to with the same degree of deference and civility that we might show to a stranger.

Love isn't a decision, it's a feeling.  If we decided who to love, life may be simpler but far less magical.

Do you know how many books....

......offer to test your personality or measure your IQ?  (Personally, I've absolutely no idea.) None, though, offers you the opportunity to assess your sanity. Now, why might this be? Because such publications would not sell? Or because, despite the claims of erudite professionals, there is absolutely no reliable way to make such a judgement. One person's sanity is another's madness - and vice versa.

So who can say what's crazy now? If you are happy with what's happening, enjoy it. If not, change it.

All actions result from thought, so it is thought that matters   (Sai Baba)

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/sai_baba.html#aGi02bmyqrgKe8h0.99

Before, during and after....

....the 2nd World War there was an entertainer called George Formby.  When he sang, he was the master of euphemisms. He was forever going on about his little stick of Blackpool rock. Or his granddad's flannelette night-shirt. Or his Auntie Maggie's remedy. In each instance, what he was really alluding to was his... 

Well, expert opinion differs. Freudian analysts feel sure he was referring to a part of his own anatomy. Those who are inclined to focus on Jung would insist he was simply describing an innate spiritual philosophy.   (Think I'll stop here - some might begin to think I'm educated...!!!)

There's rarely a need to look for hidden meanings. The obvious is all you need to see.

Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.    (Paramahansa Yogananda)

Things that are easy to say....

....are not always easy to hear. A few words, uttered in an unguarded moment, can reverberate in an awkward echo that is never satisfactorily silenced. Fortunately, the opposite is true. There are some speeches that we mull over in our minds for ages, afraid that they will go down badly. Yet when we finally deliver them, they can be surprisingly well received. 

As long as we give due thought about what we are really trying to say, there's no reason why it shouldn't be said in a way that brings about the right result.

All action results from thought, so it is thoughts that matter.  (Sai Baba)

I don't know if you travel a lot....

.....but if you do, you'll probably have noticed that near every great tourist attraction, there will be an artist sitting quietly at an easel. For a fee, this great creative talent will draw you with an elongated nose, an extended forehead, a longer chin or over-emphasized eyes. They will attempt to paint a picture which, whilst it undoubtedly is 'you'... isn't really you. It will lack subtlety. It won't really do you justice. 

We all have such an artist in our mind. It looks at situations and it sums them up unevenly and unfairly.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.  (Carl Jung)