For all that trusted friends are the best mirrors, it is still true that for each of us we are the measure of the world.

That is, for all that we confuse ourselves, we also are the thing we know best.

Today’s revelation: I figured out my love-formula.

I mean “what it takes for me to feel loved”:

1. being appreciated/honored – I’m treated as worthy of someone’s time
2. being made to think – the ending is that endorphic euphoria you might recognize from the end of a good workout.

Now, taking myself as “the measure of reality,” I can do several things with this information.

• I can see where I’ve already applied it, in the unconscious way we naturally speak our own language
  • Reading to my children, training them to think
  • Feeling *really* connected to individuals who have parallel definitions of love– or at least provide what I need
• I can understand how my feeling unloved by certain people is a matter of practice and not of truth
• And I can be motivated (combining those two) to more-actively apply my observational skills to be sure and learn how to communicate love in a meaningful way.

I got this multiple-languages concept (and looking for others to be different from me) from The 5 Love Languages model, but I was unsatisfied with the broad strokes of “only” five.  I can see the Five bound up in my Two, but knowing what specific “vitamins” I need I want to jump straight there.

Question: Do you find The Five Love Languages a useful model?