How many people do you know who feel alone and lost without a romantic partner? They sit around waiting for Mr. or Mrs. Right to come knocking on their door, without doing much to prepare themselves for the special gift of love. If this sounds like you---- it is time to Get Smart! We seem quite inept in choosing life partners. One only has to take a look at the current divorce rate to see that we have not developed effective decision making skills when selecting mates. This is not only due to a general lack of education on the subject, but also because of the lack of selection criteria and the habit of making premature romantic decisions. However, lives and families do not have to be broken. All that is needed is enough people making smarter decisions. Is this wishful thinking? Not really, because as we move towards the new age, more people want to make better decisions and live a higher quality life.

The societal pressures to have someone are pervasive. We are inundated with images and messages that life is just not complete until you find that someone special, which leads us to ponder what to do in the meantime?

Liz Smith once said, "Love is the outreach towards self completion." As you are more able to love yourself and others, the more complete you will feel. If you want more love in your life, be more loving. Share more of yourself with the people already in your life. The law of attraction says that like attracts like, then it follows that love attracts love.

Why not improve your own life -polish yourself so that you shine and sparkle? I once read a card that said "The arithmetic of love is unique. Two halves do not make a whole. Two wholes make a whole." In the meantime, you can be working on making yourself to become the best you can be. By working on your own issues and becoming the kind of person you seek, you set the stage for meeting that special someone. And when love comes into your life, you will then be ready and willing to experience it on a higher level.

Things to Know About Modern Love It's been said that love makes you blind and can often trick you into thinking that you really have love. All too often, the illusion of romantic love leads people down roads that turn out to be wrong turns or dead-ends. How can you spot the difference? By tuning into what your intuition is telling you. Finding real love means learning from your past mistakes and requires that you develop an open mind and heart, patience, and a willingness to let go of worn out belief systems and limiting thought patterns. It also requires setting aside your ego, and letting your soul be your guide.

If you have been lead astray time and time again, you are most likely allowing your ego to make your love decisions. If you consistently rely on a lack of sense, clarity, and vision of what you desire, you will miss your mark every time. If you want to find real love, you must look at what needs to change (within you), visualize the kind of love you desire, and then consciously work on creating it. Our way of living has evolved dramatically, yet our way of loving seems to be stuck in the romantic era. Many people still believe in the knight in shining arm concept of love, which is completely misleading to millions of people. If you too would like to find ultimate love, you must learn to love in a more modern, equal, and enlightened way.

Another key aspect in finding real love is an awareness of what you think about love. Do you perceive love as choice or chance? Do you believe that you deserve to have love? Or do you believe that love is only for the lucky ones? Indeed, you may need to clear some mental programming in order to find the kind of love you are seeking. There is a saying in the Unity church that "thoughts held in mind reproduce in their kind." So just by thinking that you are worthy and deserving of real love can help bring it into your life. Thinking about love also involves knowing it when you see it, so developing your own definition will enable you to recognize love when it magically appears.

Romantics will not like reading this, but love is a practical matter. There are only a few people on this earth who will fall in love at first sight and live out the rest of their lives together as a couple. For the rest of us, we need something more to go on than pure destiny and hope. The Get Smart! approach is about learning to utilize your decision-making skills and to spot trouble ahead of time, long before you find yourself in an unhealthy relationship. Smart people know that giving yourself away too soon can deplete you of your ability to love in the highest way. Being smart means saving yourself for the right person and then experiencing the romance that develops naturally.

In my book, Get Smart! About Modern Romantic Relationships, I discuss the process of making good decisions, defining love, developing a vision of the ideal relationship, the difference between soul mates and life mates, the 7 stages of a romantic relationship, and how to apply a modern approach to love. The book implies that love is somewhat of a learned skill. Truly there is no better training ground than LOVE. And if you are ready and willing to bring about some changes in your love life, then buy my book (or any other solid self-help book) and Get Smart!