Many good opportunities are ruined for the dream of slightly better ones.

Would you have a more successful career if you had taken that other job or moved cities? Possibly. But your actual career will definitely suffer if you don't commit to doing it to the best of your ability.

Would you be 10% happier in a different relationship? Maybe. Maybe not. But you'll definitely be unhappy in the one you have if you spend all day thinking about what else is out there.

The surefire way to end up worse off is to agonize over unchosen options and fail to make the most of the one you selected. Every minute spent yearning for your unlived lives is a moment you can't invest in the one you actually have.

Choices matter, but so does your level of commitment.

No relationship is perfect, ever. There are always some ways you have to bend, to compromise, to give something up in order to gain something greater...The love we have for each other is bigger than these small differences. And that's the key. It's like a big pie chart, and the love in a relationship has to be the biggest piece. Love can make up for a lot.

"There is an unspoken agreement in every successful relationship: "I'm not perfect and you're not perfect. I can ignore your imperfections if you can ignore mine. I choose to spend my life in your company.

the tricky thing about life is, on the one hand having the courage to enter into things that are unfamiliar, but also having the wisdom to stop exploring when you’ve found something worth sticking around for. That is true of a place, of a person, of a vocation. Balancing those two things — the courage of exploring and the commitment to staying — and getting the ratio right is very hard. I think my 70-year-old self would say: ‘Be careful that you don’t err on one side or the other, because you have an ill-conceived idea of who you are.

only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn't exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being.

Sometimes people jump from relationship to relationship because they’re trying to avoid the challenges that love requires. You could date someone new every three months and have a lot of fun. But there is no growth in the cycle of just flirting, hooking up, and ditching. It is this ongoing growth and understanding that helps us sustain the fun of love, the connection of love, the trust of love, the reward of love. If we never commit, we’ll never get to love.

remember, trust blossoms in the absence of control, and vibrant relationships should feel like a balance of freedom and home. your partner should accept you as you are but also help you feel safe enough to do the deep work of healing and growth not because they want to change you but because their presence energizes and inspires you to flourish into greater emotional maturity

One has to go into relationships with equal expectations, ready to give as much as the other - not with one person wanting a fling and the other real love...