We would all know exactly how everybody felt, all the time.

Growling would be a socially acceptable response to annoying behavior.

Frisbee would be considered the sport of champions.

We would all go running every day.

We would all own closets full of tennis balls, but nobody would play tennis.

We would all have beds in every room of the house... and in the office... and in public lobbies.

We would all run to the door to greet every family member whenever they came home.

There would be no such thing as prisons--all unacceptable behavior would be dealt with immediately.

We would never do anything that wasn't any fun.

Every business would be a family business.

There would be no such thing as strip clubs, but restaurants would be open all night long.

No one could be a drug dealer because everyone could smell them from a mile away.

There would be no such thing as cities because nobody would ever leave farm country.

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New from the comments...

We'd stay mad at people for about 10 seconds, and then we'd decide it would be more fun to go play some more. --Contributed by Cynthia Collett.

We'd all save water because taking a bath wouldn't be quite as much fun as sploshing about in muddy, smelly puddles! --Contributed by Michelle from the land "down under."

The area around the local dump would be considered prime real estate. --Me. Inspired by Michelle's comment, I just thought of that one.

One of the things I love most about designing logos is that these "simple" little symbols are so contextually complex!

On a business level, a logo designer has to ask, "What does your business do? What kind of customers are you looking to attract? What sort of relationship do you want to have with them, and what first impression do you want to make? "

On a cultural level, a good designer has to know what various symbols mean--both to the "dominant" culture and to any "subcultures" that the business wants to reach. What feelings and impressions do different colors, shapes, and images evoke?

And there's a highly personal aspect to logo design because the right design is the one the client will be proud of. He or she should get a little jolt of energy every time they see their logo--whether it's on a business card, on a product, or on the back of a truck.

The difference between good and great design is often in the consulting work that ideally precedes the design process. Customers almost always have some idea of what they're looking for ahead of time, but that doesn't mean they will know how to communicate it.

So a good designer asks a lot of questions about colors and symbols and feelings and about the customer's business concept. A great designer then helps the customer analyze that information to discover a good direction for the logo.

Being a great designer is as much about great consulting as it is about great design.

After all, the designer is essentially being hired to represent the client to his or her customers every single day, day in and day out, potentially for the life of the business. Designing is about more than just eye candy--it's about helping the client to take their business wherever they want it to go.

1. You can't remember the last time you ate, but you have vague recollections of peanut butter and some stale crackers you found in the back of your desk drawer.


2. You can't remember the last time you slept a full eight hours, but... nope, you just can't remember.


3. You're so used to talking to your significant other by phone that you start calling random people "Honey" on your business line.


4. Your favorite thing about Sunday is that the phones at the office stop ringing.


5. Your least favorite thing about Monday is that you have to start sharing the fridge again.


6. The weekend routines of your office cleaning staff are programmed into your calendar.


7. You're spending so much time at work that your family starts scheduling appointments.


8. You have ten weeks of TV shows on your DVR that you've been saving to watch "when you have the time."


9. The business contacts in your address book outnumber the personal contacts by at least thirty to one.


10. Your primary annoyance over project assignments is that they're taking so much time away from your other project assignments.

I've been flaking on the life and society blogs lately as I wrestle with the new website design, but I found this entry online and had to post it. First, I'm fascinated by the "mind vs. emotion" theme of the book, and second, I know the people of the Knight Agency and they're good folks. So I'm happy to participate in the experiment, support one of their writers, and enter to win some book bucks to boot. Nice!

I am participating in a blogging experiment hosted at dearauthor.com.  To enter the contest, put up this blurb, image, and trackback and you are entered to win the following prize package. 

• $200 Amazon gift certificate
• Signed copy of Slave to Sensation
• New Zealand goodies chosen by Singh
• ARC of Christine Feehan's October 31 release: Conspiracy Game

You can read about the experiment here and you can download the code that you need to participate here.

SLAVE TO SENSATION
Nalini Singh
Berkley / September 2006

Welcome to a future where emotion is a crime and powers of the mind clash brutally against those of the heart.

Sascha Duncan is one of the Psy, a psychic race that has cut off its emotions in an effort to prevent murderous insanity. Those who feel are punished by having their brains wiped clean, their personalities and memories destroyed.

Lucas Hunter is a Changeling, a shapeshifter who craves sensation, lives for touch. When their separate worlds collide in the serial murders of Changeling women, Lucas and Sascha must remain bound to their identities…or sacrifice everything for a taste of darkest temptation.

Excerpt

It's crazy late Sunday night--or crazy early Monday morning--and I'm still lost in the world of web design. Boy, do I ever love it in here. Whatever you can dream up, you can create!

There are a few caveats though...

For one thing, the speed of imagination outpaces the speed of design at a ratio of about 100 to 1. And the speed of design outpaces the speed of production by about 10 to 1. So mathematically speaking, the speed of imagination outpaces the speed of production by... you got it: 1,000 to 1.

If you want to enter the world of design and you intend to be involved in the creation process from start to finish, be prepared--the need for patience on the back end is significant.

As a by-product of the imagination-to-production ratio, there's a tendency for us creative types to forge on ahead with our wild ideas while the production process is still chugging along at a relative snail's pace. At some point, the creative process has to stop to allow both design and production to catch up.

If you ever want to see a design specialist go stark raving mad, try changing the design specs on their project four or five times a day. The same goes for the production team, but they'll go crazy over just one change per day. They're very down-to-earth, those production folks.

The best way to handle creative types--myself included--is to force us to enter the physical design process. Nothing grounds the imagination like good old-fashioned pen and paper. Computers work too. Anything that forces the imagination into some kind of tangibility will throw a healthy dose of realism into the equation.

Laying out the design work for the new site, we soon realized that we were looking at far too many pages to be realistic right out of the gate. The navigational system alone was turning into a nightmare.

As a general rule, users need to be able to find what they're looking for within two mouse clicks. You might get three clicks out of someone with a cable modem, but then again you might not. And for everyone who still has a 56K dial-up connection, forget it. You'll lose them after two for sure. You might well lose them after one.

On the other hand, if you can engage your visitors within those two clicks, then they might decide to surf your site for a while, just to see what else is there. But you have to reward them with a worthwhile experience in every new click or they'll lose their interest.

So we've nailed down the specs for "Phase One," and we're well into production mode on the new site. All critical information is one click from the home page, with secondary clicks providing even faster "in-page" navigation for the most attention-demanding customer.

And I've promised to limit all daydreaming to Phase Two and beyond. But that's fine by me. As soon as Phase One is up and running, I'll be ready for 'em.

So I get this promotional letter in the mail today from BellSouth. It's addressed: "Informed Consumer."

Now I have to wonder... if they really think I'm informed, then why are they still sending me mail?

Logically, I think they should be sending this stuff to the uninformed consumers. I don't suppose that would look good on the envelope though.

If I'm going to receive junk mail, I prefer the kind that just says "Current Resident." It might be inconvenient, but at least it's honest in its anonymity. "Current Resident" says "Look, we don't know you. This harassment isn't personal. We're just bombarding everyone." In the electronic age, when even identity is for sale, anonymity is a rare thing. It makes me realize how much the world has changed since my grandfather's generation.

When my grandfather lived with us--this is a while back now, somewhere circa 1980--one of his habits that I found to be rather eccentric was his daily routine of answering all his mail personally. Even the junk mail.

Letters from Sears would receive a polite, hand-written note in return. "Dear Sirs: Thank you for your kind offer dated Wednesday, April 24. Fortunately, our dishwasher is in excellent condition and is serving our needs quite adequately. However, should we find ourselves in need of such an appliance in the future, we will be sure to consider your fine products."

Needless to say, my grandfather was on every mailing list in the country. He passed away over twenty years ago, and mail still shows up for him from time to time at the family household.

I like to think of these straggling missives as more personal, somehow, than the junk mail I get myself. I think of some hopeful soul somewhere wondering why they never hear from him anymore, sending out one more letter or catalog on the off chance that they might be able to spark up that old dialog again.

There was a certain politeness in my grandfather's day that we have lost utterly as a country. Mail was really intended for people back then. It wasn't just scatter shot across the suburban bow.

Of course a lot of other things have changed too, and many of them for the better. I love my computer. I love my cell phone. I love the Civil Rights Act of 1965. But I don't like the fact that businesses have stopped worrying about annoying people. What's the world coming to when we stop being concerned about each other?

Believe it or not, I wish I had the time to answer all my own junk mail personally. I'd still know it was junk mail, but at least I'd have the luxury of behaving otherwise. In the end, my grandfather had it right. The world may have become anonymous around him, but he never gave in to it. To his dying day, he still treated every soul with dignity.

I can not even begin to tell you how much I love design work!

In honor of Mind Unbound's new, more focused direction, I'm redesigning the website to highlight the services we provide to writers and authors.

We help with developing book ideas, writing book proposals, querying agents, and promoting & selling books in the marketplace. We also help writers to package their words by providing graphic design services for websites, blogs and newsletters. We even design book covers!

At the moment, I'm wrapped up in designing and building our own website, and I'm loving every minute of it. I'm including a few "screen shots" of some of the pages that are currently under construction. That first one on the top left is the splash page that will welcome visitors to the site.

Much like a book cover, the splash page should be an attention grabber.

This next page here will be the first page of the "company overview" section. It will include some brief text (not written yet, as you can see) and will link to the other pages in the section.

In a large site, navigation is always an exciting challenge. You want the pages to be accessible quickly, but you don't want to take up too much page "real estate" with complex navigation schemes.

That's one reason I usually stay away from sidebar-based navigation. A blog is one thing, but on a regular website, navigation in a sidebar can leave lots of wasted space below the navigation links. Unless you have something else to use that sidebar for, I'd recommend either "floating" a navigation layer so that the rest of the page can wrap around beneath it... or simply using a left-to-right navigation scheme as I have on the new site.

Another thing I enjoy about design is the challenge of creating a common "look and feel" for a site that is flexible enough to vary as needed.

Notice, for example, how I moved the main Mind Unbound text from the top of the splash page to the bottom of the information pages. I started out with it on the top, but in the information pages, the big blue bar over the white page made everything "top heavy," and when I made the bar smaller, the title didn't look right anymore.

I played with the title size for a while, but ultimately I kept the nice big "splash" feel of the title and just moved it to the bottom against the white background. It keeps the brand prominent without creating the feeling that it's in the way.

Which leads me to my final comment on design for the day... the key to design, as in so many places in life, is to give it the time it needs. You can't rush the kind of creative play that leads to genuine breakthroughs. I must have played with that silly title layout for a couple of hours. I still wasn't happy with it, so I took a short break and when I came back, I finally tried moving it to the bottom.

Bam! That was the key. But I needed time to play and then a little time off to see it. Sometimes slowing down is the only way to hit that "Aha!" moment.

Ever since I saw The Pirates of the Caribbean, I've spent many a sleepless night worrying that Johnny Depp might be after my private stash of web loot! Just so I can finally get some rest, I've decided to bury my treasure in bits and pieces throughout the Mind Unbound blogs.

I figure my treasure will be safer if it's spread out, but now I won't be able to keep track of it all at once. I've buried the first dubloon in the comments to one of this week's Mind Unbound blog posts. Will you help me keep an eye it?

(For a hint on finding the Mind Unbound treasure, ask me for a copy of this week's newsletter!)

My favorite moment of this summer's baseball season has nothing to do with the pros, either the majors or the minors. Nor does it have to do with college ball, high school ball, or even little league ball. No, my favorite summer baseball moment has to do with T-ball and five-year-old Triston, who was finally old enough to play this season, much to his relief.

[Rawlings Youth Batting Gloves. Product Image from Target]

Life is progressing at a snail's pace for young Master Triston, who was reminiscing forlornly back in March about missing the "good old days," meaning Christmas. Two months for him last at least a year, so by his reckoning he's been waiting for the chance to play organized ball for over three decades. Guess I can't blame him for being a little impatient.

Opening day of T-ball season finally earned him his first pair of T-ball gloves. I intend to swipe them as soon as he grows out of them so I can save them in a keepsake chest like the one my mother stores in her attic. That is, if there's anything left of them to swipe.

Triston and those T-ball gloves are like... No, I have that backwards. Peanut butter and jelly, Batman and Robin, Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire--the greatest pairs known to human kind can not compare to Triston and these T-ball gloves.

He wears them to his aunt's house. He wears them when he plays video games. (They help him "concentrate." They help him "grip the controller better.") He even wears them to bed. Clearly, these are magic gloves. Forget the chest in the attic. As soon as those gloves are in my possession I'm going to rub them like a lamp and see what happens.

But none of these quirks or comments can live up to my favorite moment.

Day one of this love affair, Triston heads into the bathroom while we're all playing video games. Moments later, he's back. Without even looking up I say, "Triston, I didn't hear the toilet flush."

"Oops!" he says and runs back to flush it. Sploosh. He appears in the living room again.

"Triston," I say, "I didn't hear the water run. Go wash your hands."

This time he beams with pride. "I don't need to! See?" And he holds up his hands.

You guessed it: he was still wearing the gloves.

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Continuing in yesterday's theme from the life blog--on focusing our energies by saying "no"--I've been thinking about things we really ought to be saying "no" to as a society.

I'm not talking about the legal kind of "no," as in statutes and fines and jail time. I'm talking about the informal "no's" that we learn to take for granted as a culture. As in, "Stop, honey. It's not polite to stare." Or even, "No, no, sweetheart, don't touch the gum on the sidewalk."

Well, we're all grown up now...

Actually, I take that back. Some of us have grown up. I happen to know several "grown" men who still think that the natural methane byproducts of baked bean consumption are the height of hilarity. But suffice it to say that most of us have grown up, and after three or four decades, we're finally coming into our own.

People used to call us "Generation X"--thanks to one guy who was apparently suffering a personal crisis of identity and nonetheless enjoyed the good fortune of finding a publisher. But we're not the lost generation anymore. We're not living in the shadow of the baby boomers or the cold war. Now we're living in the shadow of rising oil prices and global warming.

My point is, we've evolved.

Gen-X has become Gen-Net, the networked generation. Among the lot of us, we have the power today--right here, right now--to completely transform our culture overnight. Together, we can say "no" to just about anything and make that "no" a reality. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to organize!

First off, let's say a unified "no" to the current state of women's fashion. I've about had it with women's clothing that looks like it fell out of the 1950s version of the Stepford Wives handbook. One of the reasons people always think I'm about 10 years younger than I am is that I dress about 10 years younger than I am. I just can't bring myself to adopt the soccer mom sweater set as an expression of "style."

I think the real problem here is that there aren't enough straight men in the fashion industry. Let's face it, if straight men were in charge of designing women's clothes, we'd all be wearing lingerie to the grocery store. I'm not saying that's what I'm hoping for, but it would be a lot better than looking through a hundred June Cleaver outfits for one little red dress.

I know, ladies, I know. You're concerned that you don't have the figure for that kind of thing anymore, right? Well I'm convinced that if women's clothing were designed by straight men, I'd actually be working out every day. And drinking plenty of water. And eating vegetarian meals...

Not only would I have the figure of an 18 year old, but I'd probably live to enjoy it for a hundred and twenty years.

Besides which, men don't care. Honestly, they don't. When you think about men making jokes about some girl not looking hot enough, think about where you remember hearing it. Ninety percent of the time, you heard it on television. Is that how we're judging reality now? By television? Please.

Real men love women. Love us. Every beautiful curvy inch of us. I promise! So turn off the TV and go show off a little. That is, if you can find anything sexy to wear.

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I'm crackling with energy lately. Here's why...

First, there's Lisa Haneberg. She's a wonderfully talented blogger who has published a book entitled "Focus Like a Laser Beam." Today she wrote a post entitled "Go where the energy is..." in which she asks the critical question, "Are you wasting your time focusing where the energy AIN'T?"

Well, yes I sure was. Now I'm not. That's why the energy.

My own best and brightest energy is in having FUN. I'm the biggest kid I know. Two years ago, when my 11-year-old niece heard that I had offered to drive her to the movies, she turned to me in utter astonishment and exclaimed, "YOU can DRIVE???"

"Yes, I can drive," I replied, wondering where this was going. "Why would you think I couldn't drive?"

"I dunno," she said, scrunching up her eyebrows and sizing me up. "You're too... kiddish."

I was 35 at the time. It is one of the most prized compliments of my life to date.

But I haven't been bringing enough of that fun to my business--or to my blogging. Well that stops now.

So if I'm naturally so kiddish, why haven't I been showing up that way more often? Well that's related to something another blogger buddy of mine just wrote about today. (Small world.)

Phil Gerbyshak over at "Make It Great!" wrote today about the value of saying "No" in keeping us both happy and balanced. I've been uneasy about the possibility of putting people off by being too "kiddish" in the working world. But that's just another way in which we avoid saying "No."

We don't want to turn people away so we don't say "No." And we don't want to turn business away so we don't say, "No, this isn't really who I am or where my energy is." Same thing. And that means we're not focusing. Forget the laser beam. When we stop saying "No"--whether to people or to ideas--we're not even focusing like a flashlight.

As of this past weekend, I'm saying "NO" to boring and I'm saying "YES" to having fun, so I can keep my energy focused where I want it. Which means I'll be having a lot more fun writing these blogs. Which means that people who like fun (honestly, how can anyone not like having fun?) will be having a lot more fun reading these blogs.

Which means that's what I should have been doing in the first place.

The first step in my new Boycott Bleakness campaign was to say "No" to the new management job I was thinking of taking. That's where those HR stories over on the business blog have been coming from. Let's wave goodbye to that job together--nice and big now... "BYE!"

(Did you wave? Did you really wave? Go ahead, no one's watching...)

My second step is to FOCUS the Mind Unbound business in some FUN directions. More on that soon, but just as a preview... did you click on one of those links for Phil Gerbyshak's Make It Great! blog? Did you notice the bright new banner that matches his book cover? Or the upgraded photo so you can see that smiling face of his? Or the nifty red titles that match the banner?

You did? Well just wait until you see his newsletter this week. What does this have to do with where Mind Unbound and I are going? Stay tuned! ;)

Timothy Johnson wrote a great post over on Carpe Factum the other day. Lurking in the Shadows is about the art of "ramping up quickly in a new (and sometimes hostile) environment." The whole post is fascinating, but my very favorite bit is about the assumptions we make that keep us from seeing (or hearing) the truth that's right in front of us.

In Timothy's example, his business students were having a hard time seeing the facts in crime scene photos. Looking at the photos, the students kept wanting to interpret the information immediately. In short, we tend to leap to assumptions about what we see and hear rather than taking the time first to gather all the pertinent information.

And once we make an assumption, we tend to stick to it.

I laughed out loud when I read his post because the timing couldn't have been better. I shared with him my favorite recent assumption story, and he insisted that I post it here. So here goes nothing...

Just the other day, I'm talking to HR about the trade show I was supposed to be attending this week (which is another story altogether) when the HR rep tells me I might have to drive.

"Drive? Really? How far is it?" I ask.

"6 hours," she says.

"6 hours?" I say, my tone rising.

"I know," she says, "I'd be upset too."

"No, no!" I reply. "I'm not upset at all! I was just surprised because I thought it was farther than that. I'd love to drive if it's that close!"

"Well, I'll try to get you a flight," she says. "You shouldn't have to drive that far."

"No, honestly. Thank you, but I'd really much rather drive."

"I'll call the regional director and see what I can do for you," she says.

"No, please," I say, getting desperate. "You misunderstood me. You heard my tone and you thought I was upset, but it was just the opposite. It was surprise at how close it actually is. 6 hours is nothing. I'd much rather drive than fly if it's that close. Please don't get me a ticket."

"Ok," she says, "if you're sure."

"I'm sure. Thanks. It will be nice to have my car there, and I'll really enjoy the trip."

Half an hour later she calls again. "Good news!" she says. "I got you a ticket!"

"What???" I exclaim. "No, I didn't want a ticket! I wanted to drive!"

"Well," she says, "if that's what you wanted, you should have said something."

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[Photo by David Pu'u. And no, it's not me. It's my friend PJ Clark.]

I'm heading down to Florida for a trade show this coming week. I'm going to try to post to the blog anyway, but I can't promise it will happen...

Turns out the company signed me up at the last minute and couldn't get me a flight. They were quite apologetic, but I told them I didn't mind. And I really don't! I'd rather drive!

A six-hour drive may seem a bit nuts, but I think it's better than flying. It's not a fear thing for me. Believe it or not, it's a convenience thing.

If it were a fourteen-hour drive I would have protested. But driving is only about an hour and a half longer than the flight when you add it all up. The drive to the airport, the wait at the airport, the flight, the drive to the hotel... That's four and a half hours right there, easily.

I'd rather take my time driving. I can head out whenever I'm ready, I don't have to worry about packing carefully, and I can take my time on the trip. I can stop and see the sights. I can talk to friends and family on my cell phone. I can stop and eat when I need to, and I can choose anything from a salad to a steak dinner.

Plus it's a nice long stretch to myself, to relax and unwind. Can anyone honestly say that about a plane flight?

And as for that eccentricity, there's one more thing driving does for me that flying can't: having my car with me gives me the illusion of freedom.

Could I really just get up and leave the show? Not without getting fired. Like I said, it's the illusion of freedom. Or maybe it's a real freedom that I would not choose to exercise short of disaster. Either way, I'll feel better knowing that my car is there--the American symbol of independence. And I drive a Jeep, no less!

I'm not going anywhere near the beach, but I might even pack up my surfboard--or maybe my boogie board--just to complete the fantasy. If I have to spend a week landlocked in a hotel, I can at least daydream on the way there.

Someday... "no child left behind" will become a meaningful reality. Some children will still learn more math, more art history, more science, or more philosophy than others. But every child will have his or her specialties, and every child will honor and develop those specialties to their greatest potential and their utmost joy.

Someday... we will enter the marketplace with our unique gifts, confident in their value. We will not lose any sleep over those talents or passions that we do not possess because we will understand that teamwork is the natural order of humanity. We will expect to find others whose joys and abilities complement our own.

Someday... all organizations will be partnerships, and all workers will be partners. The very idea of "employees" will be considered feudal and barbaric, a mark of distant history. Partners will be responsible only for their highest calling. To give up one's calling will be considered impossible, unreasonable, unimaginable.

Someday... all tasks will be valued equally. Developing new products, managing inventory, and maintaining the cleanliness of a store or workspace will all be seen as critical to the whole and therefore incapable of being valued separately. And being valued equally by society, all people will value themselves.

Someday... all despicable work will be eliminated. We will create and provide clean energy solutions, healthy work conditions, and safe living environments for everyone. Anything less will be considered unacceptable. Those who choose to take on our deplorable tasks during the time of transition will be held in the highest esteem.

Someday... our joys in our accomplishments and the strength of universal self-worth will eliminate all feelings of inferiority, jealousy, bitterness, and hatred. Fully embracing ourselves, we will fully embrace each other, and no one will ever again know loneliness, fear, rejection, or despair. Knowing our true value, no one will be forgotten.

Someday... we will understand that the freedom to live our joys depends inherently on the contributions of those who complement our own talents. We will understand that our greatest strength lies in each other. Valuing all of humanity--profoundly and reverently valuing all of humanity--we will finally know Peace on Earth.

I'm at the grocery store this past weekend, and I see these signs everywhere that look like sale tags. The bright yellow markers are spread out here and there along the shelves, proclaiming one bargain or another.

Here's what they say: "Everyday Low Price!"

So, not sales then. Just the illusion of sales. A trick to snare the subconscious mind.

Don't get angry with the grocery store. It's not the store's fault. This is how our culture approaches human decision-making. Caveat emptor--buyer beware. Lying is bad, but subtle manipulation is just good marketing.

I have to wonder, what would the world look like if our highest value were a profound respect for the rights of others to make their own decisions? Can we even imagine what such a world would look like?

I think we can begin to imagine it. It's not that we're bad people. It's just cultural training.

Here's that training again in another context...

"Hey, honey, let's go see that new action film tonight."

"But we saw that other action film last time, remember? Let's go see the new dramatic one that's out."

"That wasn't really an action film last time. That was more of a comedy, really. We haven't seen a real action film in forever."

"Sure we have. That film last month was an action film, remember? And this new film has some action in it. You saw the previews, right?"

"Yeah, but it's not a real action film. This one is a real action film. And it has that actor you like in it..."

How much time do you suppose we spend in a single lifetime trying to convince people to do things they don't really want to do? I hesitate to even guess. But if we really respected each other's feelings on a fundamental level, conversations would run in entirely different directions.

"Hey, honey, let's go see that new action film tonight."

"I'm not really in the mood for an action film. I'd be interested in seeing the new drama that's out, though. Would you like to see that?"

"No, that one doesn't sound very interesting to me. Do you want to go see different movies?"

"Not really. I'd rather spend some time together this evening. Is there something else you'd like to do that I might enjoy too?"

I'm not talking about refusing to compromise. Sometimes we're willing to sit through a less-than-thrilling movie for someone we love. Sometimes we're not. But easily accepting "no" for an answer would leave more room for people to say "yes" more often.

When we know that our deepest feelings will be respected, we have a lot more energy left over to explore new experiences, to stretch our boundaries, and most importantly, to take care of each other.