When I read it though I see it as I have bad days just like you. They are not all the time. I do try to make myself better, but I am far from perfect and if you can’t stand by me once a month or once every couple months and leave or tell me to leave and never come back and not try to talk about what the issue is than no you don’t deserve to be with me when things are going great.

Everyone is all those things at times, if it is all the time it’s annoying and they need to go, but if it is on occasion and they work on it it’s not that bad.

I do believe that if you can not work together and stick out the hard times and only live in the easy fun times you don’t deserve to be with someone in the easy fun times. You have to be able to make it through the tough times where shit hits the fan and everything is going wrong to be able to be there for the good times. I told my boyfriend just as long as you don’t make excuses and not try to better yourself it’s okay to have flaws. I have flaws but I don’t use being human as an excuse. I’m far from perfect, but I try very hard to be a better person tomorrow than I am today that.

I think you are right in the way that it is worded it is making it sound like it is making excuses not to better yourself and saying I’m proud of my flaws live with them or move on. Sorry I’ll move on.

We want people to be “authentic”,
But what do we really mean by that?
We hope they are:
honest, caring, making us smile, constantly trying to improve oneself, not flawless but genuinely sorry when hurting s.o whether consciously or not, vulnerable, sometimes in a bad mood but not acting out on it, with quirks and pimples, not perfect but human like us and approachable…

A lot of people seem to believe being authentic is acting out your inner three year old child-
Don’t geht me wrong-
three year olds can be very charming-
And very tiring!!!

Thanks Sally :)

This is where knowing the power of self reflection, taking responsibility for your actions and reactions, and sincerely saying “I’m sorry for (fill in the blank with what you know was wrong about your behaviour)” without the use of the word “but”, without any form of justification, becomes vital to a relationship. We all will need forgiveness time to time, whether it’s among family, lovers, or friends. Put two people together long enough and human nature will deal us blows to our ego. But coming back to spirit, back to love and using love as a verb to take responsibility or to forgive becomes what love ultimately is all about.

i’m glad you shared this! :-)

I’ve seen that Marilyn Monroe quote many times and thought what a bs. I can’t put it as eloquently as you. People keep sharing this kind of stuff on social media. I don’t think people know or actually “think” about what they are sharing. They do it because the quote sounds cool, or it sounds “rebel” (oh I am such a bad-ass, watch out people :-P ). It makes me laugh when people who are not even passionate about life see themselves as rebels. What is even funnier is that they think “being selfish” is being rebel.

I liked this part from the article you linked: These kids, perhaps not equipped with the same critical thinking capacities as the first type, will eventually buy into the hype. They will look at those trophies and gold stars, unearned and undeserved, and begin to develop an inflated image of themselves. What is born from this is not confidence, but narcissism and arrogance. These are the kids in possession of the much-heralded “self-esteem.” Indeed, they hold themselves in high esteem. Why? Because they are themselves. They are spectacular, beautiful, athletic, and brilliant, all by their very nature. Whatever they do is the best thing anyone has ever done, simply because it was done by them. Whoever comes in contact with them ought to be grateful for the privilege…People don’t know how to be in relationships anymore, and I think this epidemic can be traced, at least in part, to the delusions of grandeur we instill in our little snowflakes from an early age.

I have worked, made friends with and even dated a couple of people like that. They were royal pain in the butt. Self-important people. I’ve always taken a joy of bursting their bubbles. I was with someone who never apologized for anything. Not even once. Nobody could make him admit his mistake and apologize for it. No way. When he screwed up, he was aware of it but he drove around words or changed the subject. And he told me “You are too smart for your own good.” I told him “You shouldn’t even be in a relationship with a human being if you don’t know how to apologize. You should get a dog instead.”

I am a good communicator. If I do or say something wrong, I think about why I did it. And I am big enough to apologize and mean it. On the other hand, apologizing is not an excuse to repeat the same mistakes. I don’t make many mistakes actually. Really I am awesome. LOL!

People think having self-respect means denying their mistakes. If you have self-respect you accept your flaws and try to cover them up with your strengths. That is something I also learned in my education life as well as personal experiences.

We all have flaws. We have weaknesses. But we need to make the best of our strengths so that our flaws will not come to surface. You put it brilliantly “Looking back, I see even then we were trying to get at the importance of remaining consistent throughout the relationship. This doesn’t just mean increasing the amount of love we shower our partner with, but also curbing our negative traits and minimizing how often we subject our partner to our worst side.”

Thank you for sharing your profound intuition and your beautiful mind, Steve. Looking forward to your new articles.

Best xxx

Nice points Angela.

I didn’t think the main argument above was counter-intuitive. Seems common sense, but your comment comes from a real position of being married, whereas the article quotes distant studies and quotes the Huffington Post – hardly the best source.

I have a friend who’s married (I’m not) and his comments are usually wiser than most things you read in the media. Because he’s living it and he knows what he’s talking about. That said, I don’t know if Stephen is married..maybe articles from his own perspective would be better than these cosmo-style articles.