Three little words that can change your life…I love you. (1 of ?)

March 21, 2014

Today I start a new series of post without a clue as to how many there may be in the series. Sometimes the simplest little things can have big impact on our lives. In this series of posts I examine very short sentences (each just three words long) that can make a difference in your life. If you have a three word sentence that changed your life somehow, share it with me and I will share my comments on those words with the world.

loving coupleOK, let’s start with the biggie – “I love you.” I don’t know of to any other three word sentences that will follow in this series that can have the impact of those three, once you have the right person to share them with. Now, it’s true that you have probably used them before in your life, with family and maybe even with best friends; however, they take on a completely new level of meaning once you have found your life partner. I’ve been with my wife for 48 years now and we make it a point to say those three words to each other every day; and we mean it.

Getting to the “I love you” stage with someone else is not easy. Just saying it out loud is a challenge for some; but, once said, it becomes the most liberating, most warming and most comforting thing in your life. Not only does it make the person that you just said it too feel great; it makes you feel great, too. Why is that? Well, it has to do with letting your shields down and exposing yourself, your feelings, your dreams, your desires, and your hopes. You sort of lay it all out on the line when you use those three words with conviction. It is founded on trust and commitment to each other. When you find that special someone who reciprocates that love and openness you will also know what contentment is in your life.

Making sure that it is the right person to say those words to is why so many are so cautious, so slow to get to that point; especially if they’ve had an experience where their feeling s were not in sync with the other person. It’s a major “ouchie” when you’ve just laid your heart out there and it got stomped upon. That really doesn’t happen all that often, but the stories are out there to keep the fear level up. Yet, without taking that risk; without laying it on the line and exposing yourself to whatever is coming, you cannot and will not get to that point where the ultimate reply comes your way – “ love you, too.” SCORE!!!

And what about the “I’m just not ready to make a commitment” angle on this? That’s valid and there is no place in that relationship for the” I love you” words. Maybe “I lust you” fits better. That happens a lot before you are issued your big boy/girl panties.  It’s just a fact or stage of life. Most grow out of that stage and desire something more, something even more satisfying than good sex, in a relationship; some don’t and they make great TV shows about people like them. I won’t attempt to comment on who grows out of that stage first – men or women; but I suspect that we all have an idea on that. Just remember that Peter Pan, after all, was a boy who never grew up.

Great things happen when you finally get to that stage with someone. For one, you stop wasting a lot of time putting on young couplefalse pretenses; on trying to hide who are really are because you are concerned that you are not handsome/pretty enough or not refined enough or not interesting enough or not whatever enough. Enough already! Now you can just be you with someone that you have gotten to a point at which they accept you for who you are, just as you accept them for what and who they are.

So, once you get past the stage where “I love you” is written in tiny letters on a little candy heart that you give to someone on Valentine’s Day and when you move on from mistaking sex for love; then find that one person with whom you can share your life, let down your guard, say, “I love you” and understand what that really means. Those three words will change your life.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Eleven Hints for life – 5 of 11

March 14, 2014

5. It takes only a minute to get a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone-but it takes a lifetime to forget someone. – Unknown

We could probably argue the timeline in this quote forever; however, the underlying points would stay the same. The whole “love at first sight” thing is probably the crush part. We oftencrush initially mistake a crush for love. A crush is defined as in the Urban Dictionary as “a burning desire to be with someone who you find very attractive and extremely special.” Most times the heat in that burning desire is based mainly upon a sexual attraction and it is somewhat telling that crushes are most often associated with the young, who have yet to learn how to control those desires.

friendsYou can probably establish whether you like someone in any hour; however they might also be able to fake it for an hour. The kind of shallow relationship that you can establish in an hour is probably fairly fragile. Sure I can say that I like you after an hour, but maybe what I’m really saying is I don’t not-like you – you haven’t done anything to turn me off yet.  At least I’ve moved off neutral in that hour and hopefully the next few hours will reinforce that feeling. For some the subsequent hours may uncover things about that person that they kept hidden initially and you’ll reconsider whether you like them or not. Time will turn that “like” into friendship (or more) or reveal a bad initial decision that is best put behind you.

I really don’t agree that you can love someone in a day, but you can make a good start at it. I think you can get beyond crush and maybe get to “like’ in that day, but love takes a few more experiences than you can get in within a day. Just like the comments about liking someone, it is possible that you’ve only seen what they carefully wanted you to see in that day. To truly young couplelove someone you have to go through more things, more emotions, more ups and downs and you can’t do that in a day. Love carries with it some unspoken extra criteria – trust being one of the most important. Love means opening up yourself to that person and that requires trust. You don’t usually build that level of trust in a day.

For some there will be a trip through all three levels. They can move from an initial crush to discovering that they really like the person too. When the passion that may have fueled the crush is tempered by time and circumstances and you have a like for that person, there is the opportunity to move on to the next level and truly love them. For most the relationships either die when the crush fades or they settle in at the friendship level and let it go at that. That’s not a bad thing; you need friends – people that you like. Maybe you can even trust them to a certain degree, just not enough to open your sole to them.

Finally, I agree with the thought that it takes a lifetime to forget someone, even if they never made it further than the crush level. Once we take time to focus upon anyone and single them out  beyond being just a face in the crowd they are stamped into our minds forever. They may not be someone that you think about every day; but, I guarantee you that there will be triggers embedded somewhere in your brain that will bring their faces back into view and maybe you will even remember their name. For sure you will remember whatever the circumstances were of your relationship with them. I don’t believe that you will ever really forget them. Hopefully those memories will be pleasant and not negative.

Find someone to like today and start making memories.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Where there is hope there can never be complete darkness…

January 27, 2014

Pastor Jack Freed, the retired pastor at my church, was a guest pastor this past weekend and preached on a theme of hope.  I get quite a bit of the inspiration for my blog posts from Jack’s daily blog posts in his blog – Jack’s Winning Words. In his sermon, he told the story of the four candles- the candles of peace, faith, love and hope.

I looked up the story he used on the internet (as you can almost everything these days).  There were lots of results returned, as the story has been told and retold many times. I chose to watch the YouTube Video about the story of the four candles that I have linked to here.

Candle Stock Photo By Arvind Balaraman, published on 15 September 2010 Stock Photo - image ID: 10020552

Candle Stock Photo By Arvind Balaraman, published on 15 September 2010 Stock Photo – image ID: 10020552

I am struck by a two things in this story…the sadness of the first three candles slowly going out; as first peace and then faith and then love were extinguished, as much caused my being ignored or cast aside in our modern world as anything else.

It sometimes may appear that no one wants peace anymore, but I suspect that for those caught up in the ongoing conflict in Syria, peace is very dear to them and something that they would welcome into their homes. For most of us the concept of peace in our lives probably does not include a stoppage of bombings and killing; but, it probably does include the secession of many disturbing things going on around us.

Faith often gets hidden because it seems not to be hip or “with it” and then eventually it gets pushed aside in the pursuit of material things or power in our very secular world. Faith also requires a humbleness that the hubris of our world is want to deride. Faith also requires a letting go of the concept that we can solve everything ourselves. It depends upon believing in a higher power that we can call upon in times of need.

Love, one would think would have stayed lit, even in the face of the loss of peace and faith; however, when peace and faith are taken away, fear often becomes one of the strongest emotions in many people’s lives and perhaps that crowds out love, too. Fear also causes isolation, so loved ones may be forgotten or pushed away.

In the end, with peace and faith and love seemingly gone we really do only have hope left to light the way out of whatever darkness in which we find ourselves.  For many people that is a darkness of the mind, sometimes called despair. It is a darkness unlike any that we have ever experienced.

I recall a trip I took with my son when he was little and we were in Indian Guides together. We spent the night in a cave. As part of that trip we took a boat ride on the underground river that flowed through the cave. When we were well underground the guide stopped the boat, which had headlights to see where we were going, and extinguished the lights. I had never been in total darkness like that before. It was scary. Then the guide lit a single match and in that total darkness there was enough light to see everything around us from that one tiny flame. Hope is like that tiny flame. As long as you keep hope lit you will not be in total darkness.

The second thing that struck me is the use of the image of the little child as the means of relighting the candles of love and faith and peace. That is an image of innocence and purity. It is the image of the ability to love without questioning or demanding. It is the image of that state of humbleness and acceptance that lets faith back in to our lives. And, it is the image of peace of the little child playing in a home or street without fear.

So watch the video (again, if you already did) and ask yourself if you have let the candles of peace or faith or love go out in your life. Maybe you have been through experiences that caused these things to be extinguished in your life and maybe things look pretty bleak; but, remember that as long as you cling to hope you are not in total darkness and you have the means of reigniting the other three candles in your life. Never lose hope. Drop the adult façade and become a child again and light the other three candles in your life. The darkness in your life will quickly drop away.

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Posted by Norm Werner

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