Our loved ones have seen the best and the worst in us--they've seen us at our most admirable and they've seen us at our most deplorable. From the highest peaks of the mountain down to the lowest gulley, they've weathered the cycle of ascent and descent in life, and are surprisingly willing for more adventures and obstacles with us. Still, it is these same individuals who know us most deeply, and care about us the most, who are the ones who can give us the most pain.

Though it seems like a contradiction at first glance, those whom we love the most are truly the ones who can inflict the most pain on us. (Likewise, those whom we love the most are the ones who can impart upon us the most joy and happiness.) Why this is so stems from the central importance of the loved ones. For example, a complete stranger could never hurt us as much as a loved one. Because loved ones mean so much to us, when they hurt us, it hurts so much more. We wonder how they could hurt us. We begin to doubt whether they ever even loved us to begin with. As necessarily as "A" precedes "B" in the alphabet, this doubt leads to even greater doubt. Confirmation that the love is real is essential to destroy these doubts. However, when this confirmation becomes inaccessible in any way, the doubt grows to unimaginable proportions, and begins to take on a life of its own. As this doubt takes a life of its own, the rational mind gives way to irrationality. One sees things not in objective wrong or right, or objective good or bad, but rather through the tinted lenses of glasses worn by an individual whose mind has so completely altered gears---gears that transform an existence of productive happiness into that of an existence merely struggling for survival. The resulting skewed perception lends itself to negative emotion. This in turn becomes negative thoughts. This finally becomes negative behavior. This all-around negativity obviously does not make for a positive outcome.

As surely as the sun does shine even upon the downtrodden, however, the positive overcomes the negative, as it always must. From underneath the chaos and rubble of a bruised human spirit, ne'ertheless remains a vitality and strength unmarred by sorrow and rejection.