You don’t have to but I found Susan Miller’s prediction quite accurate.  It was recommended by a CBS friend who has been a loyal follower. It publishes new predictions for each of the 12 signs in the beginning of the month. I also like the love section. August just started. What does your sign say?  Take a look!

Click the link and listen: I love this song—the first time I heard it when I was in a car in the Hamptons. I felt just like the title of the song: forever young! The person playing this song said the original version was better. But I still love this one and for some reason, it touched me deeply. Close your eyes…do you really want to live…forever young?

How did Confucius get all these lessons thousands of years ago? I don’t know.  But I find these sayings stay true even many things have changed over the centuries: people, technology, culture, language and even religions, but human nature stays the same.  These quotes are inspiring and enlightening even until today.  Click the link! Share your thoughts and favorites!  Mine are:

“If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it’s OK. But you’ve got to shoot for something. A lot of people don’t even shoot.”

“The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.”

“To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”

Many relationships fail because of why they started in the first place. They could have started with the wrong reasons. For example, people often look at what they can get out of a relationship rather than what they can put in. They might go into a relationship because they are lonely, they want love, to fill a gap, to have someone to love, to end their depression, to improve their sex life, or worse, because they are bored.

Most people do not realise they go into a relationship to fulfil a need. Some say they were nothing before the other came along, that that special other makes them feel complete. However, the purpose of a relationship is not to have another complete you, but another with whom you can share your completeness.

For a relationship to be successful, we need to love ourselves. If we don’t, how could we possibly love another. Some people hate themselves because they feel no-one loves them. They don’t believe us if we say we love them, and instead think they are being manipulated. They want us to prove that we love them and often they ask us to change our behaviour.

Then when they do believe us, they start to worry how long we can love. They want to hold onto this love so much that they start changing their behaviour. So what we have then have are two people not being themselves. And when we cannot be ourselves, we start to resent it and become bitter about the relationship.

For a relationship to be successful, we need to be concerned about ourselves and what we do or are in relation to our highest vision of ourselves or who we really are. Too often we are overly concerned about the other and whether they are living up to our expectations. We need to honour, cherish and love ourselves before we can truly fall in love with another.

One thing we do in relationships is demand - demand time, attention, that the other says “I love you” over and over, demand gifts, be taken out etc etc. We also get offended if none of these things happen, and we play out this offence. We miscontrue or misunderstand another and create dramas. We can understand then if someone doesn’t want a relationship because what they are often getting is a whole lot of emotional baggage - the games, the manipulation, the false emotion.

Imagine if we needed nothing in the relationship. Imagine that we simply wish to give love and pleasure. How could the other person not want to give us love and pleasure in return? And if that person doesn’t, is there any reason to hang around despite how much we claim to love that person. We have to honour ourselves.

Great quote from Lynn Berry’s blog.

I am asking everyone to read and more important, watch this story. It made me tear up…which is very unusual for someone reporting the brutalest crime and scariest accident all the time. It is a story about a rare illness of the sister of a fellow NBC reporter Peter Alexander (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6907171/ns/nightly_news_with_brian_williams/).  We bumped into each other often. He is good looking, smart but we never talked much except for a smile.

However, accidentally reading this story made me know so much more about him.  His sister is pretty and articulate, just started out in life, yet she is losing her sight and hearing..and becoming blind and deaf.  It is so hard for me to write this, watching her interview filled tears in my eyes but it also reminds me of how lucky I am.  Like she said, when you have something and are losing it, it is different from you never had it.

Sometimes we sweat small things in life but they are really not worth it. You really should listen to or read this story, especially when you have those upsetting moments. Ask yourself, is it worth it?

It also reminds me of my own sister, Qing who was born very smart and beautiful yet she was treated by mistake at a hospital in China, that affected her so much. Growing up, I didn’t understand why she sometimes got mad at me when people said I was smart. I finally did. I am so lucky.  I didn’t even realize how lucky I am just being normal and who I am. My sister is still one of the most beautiful, kindest and smart people in the world.  Maybe not as “ambitious” as I am, she is so happy with a simple and complete life.  These 2 sisters give us amazing lessons…they are both facing their own life challenges which are so much tougher than a lot of ours. I admire them both enormously. They inspired me big time!

An extremely valuabe and touching lesson from this link. Hope it enligtens you like it did to me.  Thank you sisters and Peter for sharing it!