Why I won't settle...

There are two things in the world that I care about more than anything else...

Doing work that helps people in the most substantial ways...and education as the foundation for that kind of work...

And falling and being in love with someone who knocks my socks off...

They are the two most important non-negotiables for me in my life...

Being in love powerfully, again, being most important to me...

I compromise all the time on the first of these...

With a view to always increasing the standards...

Meaning...compromises are always temporary...

Ideals are works in progress...

But when I was in love with Brandi...it was for real...and there's just no other way I could live my life, frankly...

I will make all kinds of compromises in my life...

But I will not settle when it comes to love...

I can't...because I know it's bullshit...which means my partner and I are cheated if I am not with someone who really impresses the shit out of me, as a human being...

All of the women that I've loved have impressed me at some level...

But I need a partner who is more like me...and who will challenge me to be better...and support me in being so...

And as I think about the opportunities for love in my life, right now...I think all the time about how I cannot settle...

I cannot...

It would be a lie...

To me...

To her...

To everyone...

I need a woman who impresses me like no woman has ever impressed me before...

Or else I will always be pining for Brandi...

That is the bottom-line...as much as I hate to acknowledge that...

I know in my heart that I can find a woman who challenges me at the deepest levels to be better...

But I've not known a woman like that in an awful long time...

One day I will...

I'll just keep saying that to myself and maybe it'll make it true...

In the meantime...

I'll just hope that whomever I find...will be someone who will open me up in ways I've never been opened up before...

Which was the case the last time I was in love...

And is the only way I know what real love looks like, any more...

I just realized that I've never given up on anything in life that I really cared about, I don't think...I can't name anything really important that I've ever given up on...

So giving up on Brandi has been about the hardest thing I've ever done in my life...because I so rarely give up on something or someone that really matters to me...

But Brandi's given very few choices on this one...she's clearly not even really interested in friendship...we are acquaintances...and I don't have much option, at this point, to have anything else with her...

But the memory of our love is the standard by which I will judge all future loves in my life, whether I like it or not...and if it means that I'm a bachelor for the rest of my life...that is the way that I will judge all loves...and I won't know love until someone exceeds...and we both exceed...that standard...

It really is the intangibles that matter most in life, I think...and love really does matter most of all...

I think I finally understand the tragedy in this song...

I've got to get something to eat and to finish this IEP:):)...

Have a great weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben