Taking care of your own need is one of the most important skills you can develop, whether you're in a relationship or not.

Once you accept responsibility for taking care of yourself, you don't have to turn to others for feelings of safety and comfort.

The result is greater self-confidence, healthier habits and thought patterns and an increased ability to cope with life's ups and downs.

There's also the matter of being autonomous in practical matters - not being dependent upon anyone else to kill spiders, caulk your bathtub, tell you when to sell your stock :).

When I was in high school, I used my friends like a crutch. Now I handle most things myself. Just last week I fixed a flat tire. Doing things like that gives me a feeling of competence - and has earned me that admiration of my friends or family.

Relationships that are based on autonomous thinking are especially rewarding because they're about mutual respect, not fulfilling needs.

One of the most important is that of happiness after success. Many people might say, "Hey, baby, give me the success, and I'll worry about the happiness afterward." Unfortunately, it doesn't happen that way.

Unless you consider happiness before you consider success, then the manner in which you achieve success could be something that would destroy you later. Many people are so busy running to the top, stepping on their competitors, stepping on their enemies and, saddest of all, stepping on their friends and loved ones that when they get to the top, they look around and discover they are lonely and unhappy. They'll ask me, "Where did I go wrong?" My answer has always been, "Probably at the beginning."

I'm sure at some point or another, we all dealt with someone who suffers from one or more of these problems: they do not know what they are supposed to do; they do not know how to do it; they do not know why they should do it; they face obstacles beyond their control.

Have you ever found yourself asking a question in your own mind like, "Why in the world am I doing this?" Believe it or not, such questions bear great weight in determining the course of our lives, and each of us must learn to address them if we wish to make the most of ourselves and the world around us.

Let's discuss the first problem - not knowing what to do.

This can be and has been a serious pitfall for mankind throughout history. For example, take many contemporary politicians. I'd be willing to wager that many of them have failed to realize what they are really supposed to be doing in whatever elected office they hold. If I were to sit down and attempt to write this without knowing that I am conveying a message to anyone else, I would probably fail quite miserable in doing so.

Unfortunately, I realize who I am and what I need to do. We must all learn to recognize the roles that we as individuals must fill. From holding a powerful political position to writing an essay, it is important for each and every person to know what they are supposed to be doing and giving every ounce of themselves doing it in the best way they possibly can.

Great! Now you are ready to be the best you can possibly be. Unfortunately, a calculus book 3 inches thick full of 3 hours of homework sits casting its ominous shadow upon you. This is perhaps one of the only instances when every teenage student in America thinks the exact same thought, "How on earth do I do this?"

Not to fear thought, for the question of "How do I do this?" enters the mind of every living being throughout the world on a daily basis. From the guy who's trying to figure out how to ask a gorgeous girl out, to the gorgeous girl who is trying to figure out how to avoid the guy, all of us encounter situations which require us to think about how we will approach certain issues or solve an unusually difficult problem.

You don't have to be an genius to find way sot solve your problems, you just have to have the hart to do it. As Edison once said, "Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration." Your heart, not your mind, is your greatest asset.

We have now discovered what we are doing and how we are going to do it, but why should we even begin to consider doing it? With this excellent question comes an excellent, although unpopular answer: responsibility.

Responsibility is the thing which make us accountable to ourselves, our families, our friends, and most importantly, our souls. It is surprising to think that something which modern society shuns with such vigor is, in fact, so important to the development of true character. When people complain about responsibility, the fable concerning the youth and the lonely old man comes to mind. The youth anxiously asked, "What is life's greatest burden?" Sadly, the old man answered, "Having nothing to bear."Remember that many times the things that you are less likely to do are, in fact, the things that most likely you need to be doing.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we must all face the obstacles and trials of life that when confronted become seemingly insurmountable. When examined closely, these problems are diamonds in the rough which when smoothed and polished, greatly enhance the quality and value of our character. Trails and the ability to overcome then are all part of the invaluable gift of life.

To illustrate this more clearly, a wise philosopher once commented that for an eagle to be able to fly with greater speed and ease, the only obstacle it must overcome is the air in which it flies. Ironic, considering the very element that makes flight a degree more difficult is also the very basis for flight itself.

As one of my favorite authors, C. Swindool, so aptly states, "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." It is the discovery of such impossibilities defiance of them that makes the human struggle for excellence so glorious. I wish you all well in yours.

Wisdom usually does not fall from high places. The mighty and the splendid have taught me little. I have learned more from my dog than from all the great books I have read. The wisdom of my dog is the product of his inability to conceal his wants. When he yearns to be loved, there is no pouting in the corner. There are no games entitled "Guess what is the matter with me." He puts his head on my lap, wags his tail and looks up at me with kind eyes, waiting to be petted. No professor or sage ever told me might live a more successfully life if I simple asked for love when I needed it.

My greatest day alone was first day in New York. I was 18 years old, alone and overwhelmed by the realization that I was in the city I'd dreamed about all my childhood. I had a taxi drop me off at dawn at the uptown Manhattan and let myself wander aimlessly downtown toward the Manhattan, stopping for coffee, and flowers, with no need to be anywhere but lost in the glorious streets of NYC.

Now that I'm a little bit older, my dream day is more modest: a trip to the zoo for silent communication with the animals, a little time in a steam room and then the luxury of watching several rented movies in a row, sailing around the world. Actually, it's not modest at all :).

The traditional holidays in our house when I was a child were spent timing elaborate meals around the holidays. My grandpa tried to make pleasant chitchat and eat as much as he could during breaktime. At Christmas he found time to have a cup or two of holiday cheer and don his holly-shaped bow tie. But he didn't truly shine until Valentine's Day.

I don't know whether it was because work at the office slowed during February or because the Spring semester just begun. But Valentines' Day was the time my grandpa chose to show his love for the special people in his life. Over the years I fondly thought of him as my "Valentine Man."

My first recollection of the magic he could bring to Valentine's Day came when I was ten. For several days I had been cutting out valentine for my classmates. Each of us was to decorate a "mailbox" and put it on our desk for others to give us cards. That box and its contents ushered in a succession of bittersweet memories of my entrance into a world of popularity contests marked by the number of cards received, the teasing about boyfriends/girlfreinds and the tender care I gave to the card from the cutest boy in class.

That morning at the breakfast table I found a card and gift-wrapped package at my chair. The card was signed "Love, Grandpa," and the gift was a ring with a small piece of red glass to represent my birthstone, a ruby. There is little difference between red glass and rubies to a child of ten, and I remember wearing that ring with a pride that all the cards in the world would not surpass.

As I grew older, the gifts gave way to heart-shaped boxes filled with my favorite chocolates and always included a special card signed "Love, Grandpa." In those years my thank-yous became more of a perfunctory response. The cards seemed less important, and I took for granted the valentine that would always be there. Long past the days of having a "mailbox" on my desk, I had placed my hopes and dreams in receiving cards and gifts from "significant others," and "Love, Grandpa" just didn't seem quite enough.

If my grandpa knew then that he had been replaced, he never let it show. If he sensed any disappointment over valentines that didn't arrive for me, he just tried that much harder to create a positive atmosphere, giving me an extra hug and doing what he could to make my day a little brighter.

My mailbox eventually had a rural address, and the job of hand- delivering candy and cards was relegated to the U.S. Postal Service. Never in ten years was my grandpa's package late - nor was it on the Valentine's Day five years ago when I reached into the mailbox to find a card addressed to me in my grandmother's handwriting.

It was the kind of card that comes in an inexpensive assortment box sold by a child going door-to-door to try to earn money for a school project. It was the kind of card you used to get from an aging aunt or, in this case, a dying grandpa. It was the kind of card that put a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes because you knew the person no longer was able to go out and buy a real valentine. It was a card that signaled this would be the last I would receive from him.

The card had a photograph of tulips on the outside, and on the inside my grandmother had printed "Happy Valentine's Day." Beneath it, scrawled in barely legible handwriting, was "Love, Grandpa."

His final card remains on my bulletin board today. It's a reminder of how special grandpas can be and how important it has been to me over the years to know that I had a grandpa who continued a tradition of love with a generosity of spirit, simple acts of understand and an ability to express happiness over the people in his life.

Those things never die, nor does the memory of a man who never stopped being my valentine.