III. Match the two halves of the statements. Expand on and present your own opinion on each of the quotations.

IV. Read the text and say whether you support or reject the author’s views on love. Give all possible reasons. What does the author compare love to? What else can love be compared to? Translate in writing the end of the story beginning with “We should rush to get on…”

BE HAPPY – YOU ARE LOVED

R.H. Schuller

“I love you because I need you”

Love relationships do fill mutual needs and that’s OK! But if love rises no higher than this “I need you” level, it is, indeed, basically selfish. The dangers of selfish love are obvious: This path leads to jealousy and extreme possessiveness. Fear is the end re­sult – the fear of losing a prized possession!

“I love you because I want you”

Passion does have a proper place in all healthy love relationships. But passion alone can be sheer lust. This path too will generate enormous negative tension. Passion does not deserve all the credit that it has been given by romance novelists and soap operas. Passion is a proof of love, anymore than lack of passion is absence of love. So let us not be deceived. Let us see real love as it is. As the poet William Blake wrote:

This life’s dim windows of the soul

Distorts the heavens from pole to pole

And leads us to believe a lie

When you see with, not through, the eye.

I am reminded of a man who is unmarried. He is in his fifties and he was despairing to me recently because his life is lonely: he has never had a family. “The trouble is, ” he said, “I once knew a young girl, but there wasn’t the passion for her that I thought should have been there. So I foolishly thought I didn’t love her. However, I deeply respected and trusted her! Now, in retrospect, I see that this was love, but I didn’t know it. So I let love pass me by.”

How often have we passed love by because we have not recognized it for what it is?

“I love you because you need me”

This is REAL love! This is the love that releases the hidden possibilities. This love wipes out fear − FOREVER!

Why does real love cast our fear? For one simple reason: Real love is a selfless love, Selfless love always produces fear. If I love you only because I need you, or if I love you only because I want you, I’m going to be afraid that \ might not win you or hold you. So I’ll live in the fearful anxiety of losing you.

But! If I love because I want to give something to you, I’ll never be fearful or worried or tense, for a giving love can never lose!

Give love, and if it’s accepted, you have succeeded! If love is rejected, you still have your love to give to someone else who is / waiting to accept and appreciate it!

WHY SHOULD I RUSH TO BOARD THE LOVE TRAIN?

There are two very good reasons to rush to love. The first is that real love releases my hidden possibilities.

Although love can hurt, although, love can bring disappointment, pain, and rejection − real love brings with it possibilities. As Amanda McBroom says so beautifully in her song, “The Rose”.

Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed.

Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your heart to bleed.

Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless, aching need;

I say love it is a flower, and you its only seed.

It’s the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance.

It’s the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance.

It’s the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give;

And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.

When the night has been to lonely,

And the road has been too long,

And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong.

Just remember, in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows.

Lies the seed that with the sun’s love,

In the spring, becomes the rose.

We should rush to get on the Love Train because we all long to bloom like the rose. We must be willing to take the chance that, in spite of the challenges and risks, we will discover the real love that can melt the snows and wake the slumbering possibilities swelling within us.

With the warmth of real love, confidence is born within me. I feel loved, and I project that love to others. In the process this love becomes a magnet. It attracts happy and creative people who bring with them inspiring ideas, and in their presence we find inspiration, enlightenment, insight! We are left with an expanded imagination! Latent possibilities emerge in our thinking!

We rush to love because it draws us to new people who stimulate our settled minds with new ideas. Suddenly our minds are opened to fresh possibilities. We discover new doors opening to new relationships! Eye-opening insights! Even faith in God! In ourselves! And in others! So, in the presence of love, the creative process proceeds. “Impossible” situations become challenges that beckon as great possibilities!

The second reason we rush to get on the love train is that real love releases and encourages the greatness that we all have within. We all want to be great at something! Whether it be a great husband, wife, parent, employee, or employer, none of us really wants to be mediocre. And nothing releases greatness within people more than love.

V. Read the text and complete each sentence adding the last word: happiness, potential, improve, yourself, problems, life, good, become, life, frequently, yourself, mistakes, rationally, spirit, often, others, behavior, things, done,, things, day, action, others, environment, another, daily. Say what points in “The ABC’s of Happiness” are most significant. Substantiate your view. Think up your own “ABC’s of Happiness”. Work out the plan of its discussion.

The ABC’s of Happiness

R. Vallet

A spire to reach your …. B elieve in …. C reate a good …. D ream about what you might …. E xercise …. F orgive honest …. G lorify the creative.... H umor yourself and …. I magine great …. J oyfully live each …. K indly help …. L ove one …. M editate …. N urture the …. O rganize for harmonies …. P raise performance well …. Q uestion most …. R egulate your own …. S mile …. T hink ….. U nderstand …. V alue …. W ork for the common …. X ‑ ray and carefully examine …. Y earn to …. Z estfully pursue ….

VI. Comment on the advice given to those choosing their spouse. Think over some other sayings and quotations con­cerning marriage:

– Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards.

– Choose wife by your ear rather than by your eye.

– She is well married, who has neither mother-in-law nor daughter-in-law by her husband.

– Chumps always make the best husbands.... All the un­happy marriages come from the husbands having brains (P.G. Woodhouse).

– The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men (Pericles).

– Women are saints in church, angels in the street and devils at home.

– Trust not a woman when she weeps.

– Because is a woman’s reason.

– A woman is the confusion of man.

– All women may be won.

– Women will have their wills.

– Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage.

– Marry first and love will follow.

– Honest men marry soon, wise men not at all.

– He that marries for wealth, sells his liberty.

– Marry your like.

– Go down the ladder when you marry a wife; go up when you choose a friend.

– “Sweet-heart” and “Honey-bird” keeps no house.

– A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person (Mignon McLaughlin).

– Marriage is not just spiritual communion and passionate embraces; marriage is also three meals a day, sharing the workload and remembering to carry out the trash (Dr. Joyce Brothers).

– My Husband and I Married for Better or Worse... He Couldn’t do Better and I Couldn’t Do Worse.

– Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed (Albert Einstein).

– …

VII. Read the text and answer the following questions: Does matrimonial happiness exist in the abstract? Should a husband and wife have similar personalities? What types of husbands and wives could you name?