Earlier this year, I had one of the worst days I can remember, after I had taken a sickly self-pitying vow to give up all hope that I would ever find a partner who would love the real me. I remember that I went to the gym after that, and pedaled furiously on a bike that went nowhere, trying not to feel either the sweat or the suffering that was seeping out of every pore in my body. Needless to say, dear reader, by the end of the day I had gotten myself one of those noxious disposable THC vape pens, and found myself sucking hard on it in a desperate bid to inject some form of joy or release into myself, no matter how chemical it was. The irony, of course, was that I had taken this ridiculous vow to give up on love in order to avoid feeling any more pain and suffering related to my love life. But trying to extinguish all hope for fulfillment with a partner had very much the opposite effect: it thrust me into a dark spiral of even bleaker suffering. Now let me tell you what did work to lift me up, to ease the pain of deprivation, and moreover, to start making me more attractive to members of the opposite sex. I simply let go. And what I let go of was the idea that I needed a partner in order to feel joy and fulfillment. Instead, I became open-minded to the idea that I could create a perfectly loving and comfortable partnership with myself. That’s right: just me, myself, and I, living in perfectly contented loving harmony, and in daily appreciation of all the other forms of love that were already in my life. Like my kids, my parents, my pets, my home, my plants, my work, and dear old Mother Nature, whose love is always ready to wrap its arms around me. Life is so much easier now, indeed. ❤️‍🔥—Y.B.D.