If we seek to be loved -- if we expect to be loved --

No one of us is free from the need for love. And most of us search for reassurances of that love from the significant people in our lives. However, the search will be unending until we come to love ourselves.

Love of self is assured when we understand our worth, our actual necessity in the larger picture of the events that touch us all.

When we realize our value and see that life's mysteries have reasons, we'll no longer doubt ourselves and we'll be free to love and understand another's value too.

We need never grasp for love when we sense the real meaning of the lives that surround us.

Our common human characteristic is our need to count in someone else's life. At least one other person needs us, we tell ourselves, when we feel least able to accept life's demands. How alike we all are.

The paradox is that our own need for love is lessened when we bestow it on others. Give it away and it returns. A promise, one we can trust.

The reality about love and its path from sender to receiver and back again is often distant from our minds. More often we stew and become obsessed with the lack of love's evidence in our lives.

Why isn't he smiling? Why didn't she care? Has someone more interesting taken our place? 

Choosing to offer love, rather than to look for it, will influence every experience we have. Life will feel gentler, and the rewards will be many and far-reaching.