Self Improvement...

People want to know how they can find love and romance, how they put fire in their relationships. It's not about sex--it's about romance-very different. People often don't love themselves. This is important before others can love you.

Romance (which is the basis for dating) is learning. Romance and dating are like school. You get to learn more about yourself by being with people who bring out different sides of you. Relationships are the way in which we come to know ourselves, form our identity, and move from our childhood perceptions to our adult definition.

But you must realize that until you have finished learning about yourself, no romance should be considered a permanent one. Because, quite frankly, you are not prepared to turn romance into love until you've learned enough about yourself to begin creating.

Loving (which makes a marriage real) is creating. It is two complementary souls with a vision of what they could become together. The process of loving is a creative journey, every day forging new ways in which to reach our goals. And everybody's path is different, unique, and particular to his or her own chemistry.

Love in marriage is a commitment of souls and so you need to manage your love life carefully. It has nothing to do with the ceremonial process that goes on in the church. That process is just an announcement to the world of what two people have already decided about themselves: that they have found themselves at the crossroads ready to walk together.

Romances are the steps to discovery. Marriage is the path of creation. In between is the crossroads. The big question is, how do you get to the crossroads?

Well, let's chart our course.

Life is a journey of self-discovery. Other people help us discover ourselves. They are, we are, like the stars in the sky, the constellations. The way in which our ancestors used to chart a course from one place to the other using the stars as guideposts is the way we try to make our journey of self-discovery, but we use other people to see ourselves more clearly.

Self-discovery, a true understanding of who you are, the good and the not so good, takes a while for most of us. During this journey we need to meet a lot of people, to see ourselves interact in a variety of circumstances. When those people are of the opposite sex that often leads to romance, which is really an intense learning period. Well, just as bright, hot stars burn out, romance does also. And that's the way it should be. New stars come into being that helps us keep on traveling. The problem here is when we get blinded by the light of a starry romance and try to make what should be temporary permanent.

It's at this point that you know you can give totally of yourself to another -- another who can accept you as you are. Real love. Romance plus more. You realize that the journey is best taken with a partner, not just a boyfriend, not just a husband, although they could be either of the two. A partner. One whose self-awareness is self-evident and whose next steps take him down the same road as yours. You are both ready to create the world in your own image, as the Almighty gave us charge to do.

When you are at the crossroads, if you are dating, married to or even fooling around with someone who is not also standing there with you, that's a waste of your time. You are ready to create, they are still learning. School's out.

That doesn't mean that all those at the crossroads are made for one another. What it means is that you will only be able to find someone who will be ready for a mutual journey with you among those who are standing there. Only those who can give love are ready to be loved.

Here there are no examples. Every case is unique. The only thing that these folks have in common is that in a very deep and spiritual sense, they are happy.