Be the perfect love you seek.

"The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that.  We waste time complaining that we are not loved enough and then looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love."
 -- Tom Robbins, from Still Life With Woodpecker

We expect so much from each other; we "need" so much, to fill the many holes we have in the places where we didn't get "perfect love" as children, that it makes us blind to the fact that only we ourselves hold the key to the quality and quantity of love we receive in our lives as adults.  The only way to ever get the love we want is to stop complaining about it, or demanding it, and start giving it - freely, passionately, unconditionally, knowing that it, and we, can be crushed at any time in the process.  This is especially relevant now, at the early hours of a particularly dangerous week in the world.  No single one of us can change world events, but we can change our own lives, and the lives of our families, and our communities, and our companies, if we act with courage and faith.  And enough of us doing that will change the world. 

As I finished the above message this morning and checked my email before sending it out, I received a regular mailing from another coach I admire, another Tom.  And as I scanned his writing, this paragraph jumped out at me:

"If we want meaning in our lives, we need to confront and transform, within and outside of ourselves, those things that harm and destroy our spirits and our relationships with ourselves, others, and the natural world. As people in Alcoholics Anonymous say, 'it is time to grow or die'."
 -- Tom Heuerman