Many people tell me that they wish they could change certain aspects of their lives. To be sure, some of them are fully in their control, like finding a better job or losing weight. It takes hard work and persistence to achieve these goals, but they're certainly not impossible. What is outside their grasp, however, is the behavior of other people. It's this that seems to make them more despondent than anything else.  You may have tried your hardest to change your partner for the better -- say, to be more helpful around the house -- to no avail. You might be pushing your friend to hang out with you more often, but she seems to have time for everything and everyone except you.  We've all been there. As long as you've done your part and expressed how you feel, there's no reason to feel dispirited over that which you cannot change. We can't will others' behavior to be how we like. People will always do things that will upset us. Unfortunately...

I know several people who are well into their 30s and down in the dumps about their seemingly endless quest to find true love. But what I've also noticed is that they hold a very low opinion of themselves . Their low self-esteem has led to an acute sense of despondency in their lives. If they don't love themselves, how can they expect to love someone else? As I've stated in prior entries, you should never view a partner as completing your life. Only you can make your like whole. Once you've achieved that, a partner serves to complement or enhance it. Saying that your life is complete only with a partner is putting undue pressure on him or her to fill a void that you yourself -- and no one else -- should fill. Many relationships fail because one person feels the other falls short of his expectations. The individual may not realize, however, that the root of the problem lies not with the partner, but with himself: he might not be living up to his own expectation...