Five Rules of a Relationship:
1 – Stay faithful.
2 – Make them feel loved and wanted.
3 – Respect your partner.
4 – Don’t flirt with others.
5 – Have time for each other.
http://mylovelyquotes.com
Month: February 2014
Every Time…
…and I am deeply grateful to realize it!
Finding The Right One
I used to think that finding the right one
was about the man (woman) having a list of certain qualities.
If he (she) has them, we’d be compatible and happy.
Sort of a check-mark system that was a complete failure.
But I found out that a healthy relationship isn’t so much
about sense of humor or intelligence or attractive.
It’s about avoiding partners with harmful traits and personality types.
And then it’s about being with a good person.
A good person on his (her) own, and a good person with you.
Where the space between you feels uncomplicated and happy.
A good relationship is where things just work.
They work because, whatever the list of qualities,
whatever the reason, you happen to be really, really good together.
From “The Secret Life of Prince Charming” by Deb Caletti
It is not a lack of love,
but a lack of friendship
that makes unhappy marriages.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A Two-Edge Sword
Hatred is like a long, dark shadow.
Not even the person it falls upon knows
where it comes from, in most cases.
It is like a two-edged sword.
When you cut the other person, you cut yourself.
The more violently you hack at the other person,
the more violently you hack at yourself. It can often be fatal.
But it is not easy to dispose of.
Please be careful… It is very dangerous.
Once it has taken root in your heart,
hatred is the most difficult thing in the world to shake off.
From The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murakami
How You Choose To Live It
Life can be long or short,
it all depends on how you choose to live it.
It’s like forever; always changing.
For any of us our forever could end in an hour,
or a hundred years from now.
You can never know for sure,
so you’d better make every second count.
What you have to decide is how you want your life to be.
If your forever was ending tomorrow,
is this how you’d want to have spent it?
From “The Truth About Forever” by Sarah Dessen
5 Things That End Friendships…
Circumstances change. We change. And we’re not supposed to spend forever with people who don’t help us to enjoy life or teach us things about the world or ourselves or who generally don’t serve a purpose other than to frustrate us. Sometimes it’s just better to acknowledge that a friendship has run it’s course and that not every friendship, much like relationships in general, is meant to be a life-long thing.
1. Sometimes the cardinal rules are broken. Maybe it’s even more important to consider whether or not we choose our own interest over the feelings of a “friend.” Because when the former takes precedence to an unhealthy degree, we should be taught something about that relationship, it’s indicative of how we really feel about that person.
2. Sometimes… the time between your phone calls increases and sometimes you let that happen and appreciate the contact you still have, no matter what it looks like in comparison to what it used to be. At that point, it’s usually better that you let yourselves go different ways, because you’ve already put something petty before your friendship. You’ve begun to drift…
3. And sometimes you just do. You drift. You don’t suit each other anymore. You don’t have anything in common, and you don’t have anything more than small talk over drinks. They’re not someone you think to call immediately when something happens. And sometimes that’s just fine for people: that’s how they want their relationships to function. But more often, that’s not the case at all.
4. Sometimes you let too much frustration or irritation fall to the wayside, for fear of starting an unnecessary argument over something that you can self-modulate to deal with without having to involve the other person. This, however, is a temporary fix that leads to catastrophic consequences. Because it’s when you fall into this habit of not expressing your needs and expectations so that you can both adapt and adjust to your relationship that you end up in a monumental fight that you never get over– one that continues on because you’ve finally opened the floodgates to everything you’ve been withholding. It’s unfortunate, but friendships are usually never the same after that. These are usually easier to let go of, because you can fill that space with anger and resentment, but that will pass eventually, and if you’re lucky, the most you’ll get out of the ordeal is a first-hand lesson in one of the most important relationship rules ever (speak now, you can’t forever hold your peace).
5. Sometimes priorities shift, and sometimes, things replace what used to be your time together. Things that serve one or both people better. Things that don’t have to be other people or friendships, but anything that we subconsciously deem as more worthy of our energy. When this happens, it’s usually time to just let it happen. It doesn’t always have to mean you don’t care about the person, and it’s not always a symptom of just needing to try harder. From a post by Brianna Wiest http://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2013/09/5-things-that-end-friendships-and-why-that-just-might-be-okay/
Maybe some people just aren’t meant to be in our lives forever.
Maybe some people are just passing through.
It’s like some people just come through our lives
to bring us something: a gift, a blessing,
a lesson we need to learn.
And that’s why they’re here.
You’ll have that gift forever.
From “The Gift” by Danielle Steel
Real and True Friends
Anyone can stand by you when you’re right, but a true friend will stick by you, even when you are wrong.
The best friend is the one who, in wishing me well, wishes it for my sake.
The best kind of friend is the kind you can sit beside without a word, and walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you’ve ever had.
Even when I can’t find the right words…you always understand what I mean.
Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don’t say.
Everyone needs someone with whom to share their secrets.
A friend can tell you things you don’t want to tell yourself.
A friend is someone who dances with you in the sunlight and walks beside you in the shadows.
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. (Donna Roberts)
Friendship is celebrating the good times, struggling through the bad times, and being there for all time.
Friendship–the older it grows, the stronger it is.
A good friend is an umbrella for the heart.
A good friend sharpens your character, draws your soul into the light, and challenges your heart to love in the greatest of ways.
A good friend will come bail you out of jail. But a best friend will be sitting next to you saying…WE screwed up!
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
I’ve had many friends with whom I’ve shared my time, but very few with whom I’ve shared my heart…
No matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
A real friend knows when to listen, when to stop listening, when to talk, when to stop talking, when to pour wine, and when to stop pouring and just hand over the bottle.
When I count my blessings…I count you twice.
Taken from http://www.dennydavis.net/poemfiles/frbest.htm
Friendship is a single soul
dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle
Ballet In Blue Jeans
From childhood through the majority of adulthood, I felt “less than” often and in many ways. Growing up poor in a dysfunctional family contributed the majority of the cause, yet holding on so tightly to the intense self-consciousness past my 20’s was all my fault completely. I was simply too old to be blaming anyone but myself!
Playing the blame game is one of the easiest reasons to hold a person back from improving his/her life. Honestly I can see now my twisted way of thinking was never a reason really. It was an excuse. As long as I could hang responsibility for my behavior on others I was able to explain away my bad manners, ill placed conduct and off-key ways of thinking. Thankfully most of that is gone now.
Friday evening for Valentine’s day my special someone and I went to see our wonderful ballet company perform “Cinderella” while backed by our superb symphony. The performance was truly outstanding. What I found most entertaining however were the over-dressed folks in their weekend regalia who were all fancied up to impress others. A few probably did so because they enjoyed being finely dressed. But for the majority the peacock pageantry was aimed at being noticed and seen. The strutting and posing amused me through two intermissions.
My girlfriend said at one point that she thought we were the only ones at the ballet dressed in blue jeans, but neither of us saw it as any point to be concerned about. Once upon a time I would have been nearly devastated to have shown up dressed differently from the crowd. Friday night I was actually proud of us for going to the ballet in pressed and presentable jeans. After the performance we did count another half-dozen souls who found jeans to also be appropriate dress for the ballet.
Today I am grateful to usually practice well the statement, “What you think of me is none of my business”. And I am so much happier having come to believe the ABSOLUTE TRUTH of those words!
No one can make you feel inferior
without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Pick More Daisies
If I had my life to live over again,
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
I’d relax.
I’d limber up.
I’d be sillier than I’ve been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances,
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would, perhaps, have more actual troubles but fewer imaginary ones.
you see, I’m one of those people who was sensible and sane,
hour after hour,
day after day.
Oh, I’ve had my moments.
If I had to do it over again,
I’d have more of them.
In fact, I’d try to have nothing else – just moments,
one after another, instead of living so many yeas ahead of each day.
I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot-water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute.
If I could do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.
If I had to live my life over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances,
I would ride more merry-go-rounds,
I would pick more daisies.
By Nadine Stair, an amazing 85-year-old woman, from Louisville, Kentucky, who provided the words above after someone asked her how she would have lived her life differently if she had a chance.
Gratefulness adds richer color and a gentle texture to everything.
Never let the things you want
make you forget the things you have.
Anonymous
Made Doing The Right Thing Look Cool
* http://www.shirleytemple.com/guestbook.html
Shirley Temple Black died Monday and finding out today touched me more deeply than I would have imagined. She was grown and her child-star movies were old by the time I was born, but I came to know them well as TV movies. Every Shirley Temple movie was “G rated” and more wholesome than a typical Disney family movie.
She was called “American’s Little Darling” for a good reason; she deserved it and was adored by kids and adults alike. President Franklin Roosevelt one said “as long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right”.
Except for some cause based television work, Shirley Temple Black left acting by adulthood and went on to distinguished life including many years as a U.S. Ambassador.
The world has lost a sweet soul and caring human being who made a difference. I will always be grateful for the positive contributions Shirley Temple made to my childhood. In her movies and how she lived she made doing the right thing look cool.
Watching a peaceful death of a human being
reminds us of a falling star; one of a million lights
in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment
only to disappear into the endless night forever.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Good Morning Gratitude 