How To Know If You're Really In Love

It is a very common question, "How can I tell I'm in love?", but it is not an easy question to answer. What feels like love to one person may be nothing more than attraction to another. Some people fall in and out of love quickly and often while others are never really in love as much as they are in lust. This can get confusing when you are a teen because romantic love is a relatively new concept for you and you don't know what to expect. You are overwhelmed with all sorts of new feelings and social pressures. They are confusing. What is love? What makes you want a romantic relationship with one person and not another? How does your heart choose a partner? Why does love end? These questions can't be easily answered.

One of the most confusing quasi-love feelings is lust. Lust is a very powerful, very intense feeling of physical attraction toward another person. Lust is mainly sexual in nature - the attraction is superficial based on instant chemistry rather than genuine caring. Usually we lust after people we do not know well, people we still feel comfortable fantasizing about. It is very common for people to confuse lust for love. But why? What is it about lust and love that make them so easy to mix up? If lust is all about sex, how can a relationship without sex be about lust? Teens struggle with this because they see lust in the Biblical sense, but lust isn't that sinister. Lust is about physical attraction and acting ONLY on physical attraction. Love is about much more than that. Yet many teens (and to be fair, many adults) confuse an intense attraction for some sort if divine love. For teens, since feelings of attraction are still new and since pop-culture sells sex and love as one package, it is very easy to get the two mixed up.

Lust is clearly not love. Love is based on more than just physical attraction. Sure, attraction is a factor, but love goes deeper than that. Love is based on caring, friendship, commitment and trust. When you are in love it is as if you have your best most trusted friend at your side AND you feel physically attracted to them. It is the best of both worlds! Love is a shared feeling between two people who have a vested interest in one anothers happiness. Love is not about jealousy. It is not about conflict. It is not about testing. Love is a positive feeling. If it is tainted by mistrust, jealousy, insecurity or spitefulness it is not really love but merely a pale copy. Love is the total surrender of your heart to another person with the security of knowing they will treat it better than you will. Love should feel good. It should not feel bad. Love should make you want to be a better person, it should not lead you to do something self destructive. Love is not demanding of your spirit but lifts it and makes it glow. Love is a good thing. Anything less is lust, deep friendship or attraction. So the sappiness aside, the question remains, how can you tell you are in love?

There is no easy way to find the truth behind your feelings or the feelings of another person but there are some tell-tale signs that love is blooming (or growing deeper). If you agree with 7 of the following 9 statements you are probably in love.

1. You know, because you have been told by your significant other, that your deep feelings are returned in kind.
2. The object of your affections makes you feel special and good about yourself.
3. If/when you feel jealous it is always fleeting; you trust your partner not to betray you or hurt your relationship.
4. Nothing makes you feel as serene as when you and your partner are together.
5. When you fight with your partner you usually make up within a few hours and you always agree that nothing is more important than you both being able to express your true feelings (even if they sometimes cause conflict).
6. Your partner never asks you to choose between him/her and your loyalties to your family and friends - if you do choose him/her over them you always have a good reason and it is always YOUR decision, and your decision alone.
7. Neither you or your partner feel the need to test the other's loyalties or feelings.
8. You are more yourself when with your partner than you are with anybody else.
9. If sex is part of your relationship it is by mutual desire and agreement without the slightest hint of commitment testing or persuasion.

If You Forget Me

If You Forget Me - Pablo Neruda


I want you to know one thing, you how this is:

If I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window..
If I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of a log,
Everything carries me to you,
As if everything that exists: aromas, light, metals,
Were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me..

Well, now, if little by little, you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little..

If suddenly you forget me, do not look for me
For I shall have already forgotten you.

If you think long and mad,
The wind of banners that passes through my life,
And you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots,
Remember, that on that day, at that hour,
I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land.

But if each day, each hour,
You feel that you're destined for me with implacable sweetness,
If each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me,
Ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated.
In me, nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
My love feeds on your love, beloved.
And as long as you live, it will be in your arms,
Without leaving mine..

Song For Typhoon Victim

Rico Blanca has a new song titled BANGON. He dedicated the song to all the victim who went through Typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng.

He says.....

Countless Filipinos have heroically gone out of their way to help our brothers and sisters in this time of need. This is just my humble contribution as a singer and musician. I hope, in my own little way, I can help raise additional funds for our countrymen affected by the typhoons, and perhaps give a little boost to their morale to help them get back on their feet again.

Make Time For Tea

A cup of tea at the end of the day does more than just soothe your nerves. It could also quite possibly add a few more years to your life.

* Defense against cancer and heart disease. Several studies in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons have already established that antioxidants in green tea help protect our body's cell from certain types of cancer. Its antioxidants are so potent that its efficacy exceeds that of vitamins C and E.

* Aids n weight control. Do you want those last five pounds to disappear? Green tea might be able to help. The body's metabolism may be naturally enchanced by drinking tea, which helps in burning 70 calories within 24 hours.

*Provides stress-relief. Melt away the long and harrowing day at work wih cuppa. In study published by the Nagoya Universitiy Department of Psychology, the amino acid L-theanine in green tea may help in alleviating anxiety and stress.

*Boots immunity. Can't shake off the flu? Drinking green tea may also help in improving the body's resistance to common ailments such as the cold and flu. The immune system is enchanced by the vitamin C and catechins in green tea.

Brigthen Up Your Day

By Bingskee

Do you feel that your tasks at hand are taller than you? Do you continuously work like not stopping? Stop. You need to brighten up your day!

1. Maintain a normal health routine. Exercise can be one. Maintaining inner health is another. If you still do not have one, start now. Do not allow a day to make you lazy. This will start a bad mood.
2. Face your problem in its early stage and immediately resolve it if possible. Taking for granted these problems will just aggravate the situation. Being able to solve even a partial of it will boost the mood.
3. Listen to inspirational songs or programs, or attend healing processes. Prepare CDs with content that can make anybody alive and happy then put them in your car or have a place for them at home, or in your MP3 player. Listen, listen and be happy.
4. Always try to smile. Smile at everybody and they will smile back at you. Smiles brighten up the day.
5. Do something to enhance your creativity, or your hobby, or your intellect. Even in the midst of the tasks or workloads, give time for this and you will feel good.
6. Do what you wanted to do. Small things can mean a lot. Watching television shows is an example.
7. Commend yourself for doing something good or exemplary for the day. You can even treat yourself. Why wait for others to do this? You deserve to have a bright day!