" Love is wondering what he’s doing right now this very moment." - Charles M. Schulz

When I was growing up, Van Halen had a video for their song Right Now and in it they showed all these lines related to the "right now" theme. One line that always struck me was "Right now she is going on with her life." 

If you are obsessed with thoughts of someone, consider asking yourself to what extent these thoughts are contributing to your life versus keeping you stuck. Sometimes we obsess over a memory of someone, or an idea of what life could be like if only if were with that other person.

It can be perfectly okay to think about someone and wonder what they are up to. Most great romances include this element. Just make sure you don’t waste your time thinking about someone who never, ever thinks about you.

Some other lines from the Van Halen video… not the song, just the video that I recommend watching if you have never seen it or if it’s been a long time:

Right now your parents miss you.
Right now no one is safe from loneliness.
Right now it’s cold where someone you love is (and they show a cemetery! Oh, if only I knew then how that would pain me now that I have lost more people I love…)

Here is the video:

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"Love is believing in someone." - Charles M. Schulz, in a 1979 copy of Love is… Walking Hand in Hand

Are you sick of these Peanuts quotes yet? I’ve been posting them every week but I just cannot get enough of Schulz’s brilliance at using child-like lines to reflect the complexity of adults’ lives.

Women and men are not perfect. We mess up. We don’t always show the best sides of ourselves. We lie, we betray and we disappoint. And yet we also deserve second chances. Not fifty chances, perhaps (or at least not all from the same person - that just sounds like self-abuse). But second chances… don’t you think?

There are people who I have dated who I would not give a second chance to in my own relationship, meaning that I would not date them again. However, that does not stop me from believing in them as people and that, at any moment, they can choose to be honest, trustworthy human beings. And I support them in their journey. I remain a friend. I give my heart in a way that makes sense to me meaning that I am able to balance my own boundaries and needs with my most sincere wishes for them to grow into the people that they want to be.

Then there are people who have never failed you (yet). It is so important to believe that a woman or man can live up to your high standards (and, as research suggests, it is good to have high standards in relationships! it gives you both something to live up to). Have faith in your partner and make sure that he or she has faith in you, too. It is so important to believe in others and to feel like the people you love believe in you too.

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This week’s MSP Book of the Week is Helen Fisher’s Why We Love. Dr. Fisher is a cultural anthropologist who has studied love and romance in a range of cultures. We are still learning much about this topic and this book provides some insight into the beginnings of research into this area - things like how brain activity differs in people when they love and are loved back versus when they love but are not loved back (unrequited love), or when people are newly in love or fresh from a break-up. Learn more about Why We Love from Amazon’s web site.

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"Love is watching someone else’s boring show on T.V." - Charles M. Schulz, in a 1979 copy of Love is…Walking Hand-in-Hand

I’m not big on TV so for me, this one has definitely been true! I have sat through so many TV shows… and all because I loved the person I was with. Sometimes I even learned to like the tv shows.

It is true that there is a gray area between sharing activities together and giving up part of yourself. Some people find that they take on too much of what their partner enjoys doing and never really get to explore what they, themselves, really enjoy or would like to do. Personally, and through my work with individuals and couples (note: I am not a therapist, however), it seems that it is important for individuals to have a sense of self-awareness about what they truly enjoy. You don’t have to like all of the same things to be a great couple. It is okay to have differnet opinions, interests and likes and it is also okay to cultivate interests away from each other. Just make sure that you come together on enough issues or interests to still feel like you’re "together".

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This book is making quite a splash - in some circles, for its chapter on sex. In others, for its admission of starts and stops. My Unwritten Books amounts to seven essays on seven books that author and scholar George Steiner intended to write, or considered writing, but never really did. The Guardian focused on the sex chapter, and on Steiner’s often explicit descriptions of being fluent in four languages and making love in all of them. If you ever took French, you may find this quote of interest:

"Gloriously astride me, my first teacher in the arts of orgasm … bade me ‘Come, come now and deep.’ But did so using the formal vous."

The LA Times, on the other hand, focused more on the fact that, in the end, this respected scholar - like so many people who are gifted in an area - are at their heart, uncertain whether they can do what everyone else thinks that person can do so easily. Here, a quote from their review that made me pause to think:

In the end, Steiner suffers a crisis of faith in his chosen medium: words. (It is the fate of the intellectual — worse, the punishment for having the hubris to try to know it all — to be forever excluded from faith.)

Learn more about the book on Amazon.com.

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