They will love me,

if I speak what they want to hear.

They will love me,

if I become their vision of me.

They will love me

if they can be my Pygmalion,

and I their Galatea.

They don’t think they demand much.

They only ask

that I give up

myself.

We all want and need love in our lives, but how much of ourselves are we willing to sacrifice to meet this need. Our dependency for someone to love us comes from childhood, when we couldn’t take care of ourselves, and actually needed others to help us survive. As adults, it is nice to have someone in our lives who cares, but we have or can develop the skills we need to survive and even flourish by ourselves. Many relationships are based on fear and neurotic need which can be ultimately destructive. We need to be sure that respect for the individuality of the loved one becomes part of every really loving relationship.

This is, however, not an easy process. We must make the effort to learn more about ourselves: to evaluate our temperament, our skills, and our enthusiasms before we are ready to make the necessary decisions that can bring us to the discovery and fulfillment of our own particular destiny. Understanding ourselves is an adventure that is ultimately exciting and joyful.

Resolve to be thyself, and know, that he who finds himself loses his misery--- Mathew Arnold