And then, the other night, at someplace sacred, I was talking to a friend of mine about some questions he was having about his current long-distance relationship. The advice I offered him was that, if he loved her, act like it.

You may say, no, it isn't that simple, but I assure you that it is. We get the choice every day of how we conduct ourselves. At lot of the time, we base our actions on what other people do. We deal out retribution in our own little ways - we don't call, we don't acknowledge, we decide to make them feel like we do. But do we have to?

The other week I was talking to my mother on the phone about a problem I was having with a friend of mine. My friend, as it seemed to me, was pushing me away and in doing so hurting me quite a lot. Her suggestion was to push the friend back. I asked her, "Why? What good could that do?"

Like they say, you have the opportunity in every situation to bring either a little bit of heaven or a little bit of hell into someone's life - especially with the people that you're closest too. Yes, people hurt you. You have to deal with that. But it reflects on you and your character as to how you react. Each person is a little house - and I want to get in. Fling yourself again and again at the front door, no matter how many times they slam it in your face.