Anxious that you’ll be stood up on your Valentine’s Day Date? Try T.I.P.S. which means “ Taking Introspection as a Path to Self-esteem Building)

Society conditions us to look for something permanent – e.g. Get married to get settled permanently. Get a permanent job for economic security. Buy products that will endure. Build a permanent house. The list goes on and on. Our internal self-esteem gadgets – meaning the mental microchips – are configured in a way that follow that conditioning process. With the template of permanence in our heads, we crave for permanence. We dream of permanence. We become insecure when nothing stays permanent. Our self-esteem gets shaky when the idea of permanence is at risk.So you have a partner, I mean a romantic partner. And you want the partnership to last beyond eternity as songs go. And every day as we know it, partnerships are breaking up while new partnerships are being cemented.What has this chat got to do with being stood up on a Valentine’s Day Date? Simple. Start re-programming your template that love will be permanent. While you work at a lasting loving relationship remember life’s “default state”: Change is a reality. Nothing is truer than that. Be open to anything so that when change happens, you won’t worry about sleeping pills. There’s nothing as preventive a measure for insanity as a mindset that is open to change. When your “default state of mind” is set at “change” you just slide down the new state with a quick: Ok, next issue, please. No butterflies in your chest. You set a date on Valentine’s Day. You wear your best dating attire with the most soothing perfume to boot. Wait for your date like a free bird. No mental backpacks. When your date comes, enjoy the occasion. Live as if the moment is the only time in your hands. If your date doesn’t come, say to yourself: “Ok. Next please” which would mean “Let me get to my next concern like a mature human being who is as free as a bird in the air.”

And by the way, read the Existentialist Philosophers too like Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sarte and others. Their thoughts will help in your re-programming process.

"Beso del Sol" or "Kiss of the Sun" is an Octavio Ocampo Painting forwarded around by email. I received the email from a friend based in Europe