Free The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved by Matthew Kelly Page A

related.
    Think about it. Americans spent $30 billion last year on diet products. The only diet most of us need is a little bit of discipline. But we don’t want discipline. We want someone to get on the television and tell us we can be happy and healthy without discipline, and we will pay any amount of money for it. We want someone to get on the television and tell us if we take this little pill twice a day we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and as much as we want, and still look like supermodels. It is another of the great myths of our modern popular culture, the idea that we can be happy without discipline. It’s a lie, it’s a myth, it’s an illusion, and somewhere deep inside we know that.
    Every step toward the-best-version-of-ourselves requires discipline.
    We need a diet of the body, a disciplined way of eating that helps fuel the body and brings it toward maximum performance. But we also need a diet of the mind, a diet of the heart, and a diet of the soul. Only then are we ready for a serious relationship. With your self in hand, you can choose to freely and completely give yourself to another person in the mystery of love.
    If you want to measure the effectiveness of your relationship, measure the discipline in it. If your relationship is filled with and driven by whims, cravings, fancies, and constant lusting after pleasure, you don’t have love. These things don’t help us become the-best-version-of-ourselves, and if we truly loved another person, we would never do or encourage anything that would prevent that person from becoming the-best-version-of-himself or herself.
    To love, we must be free, and yet too often we are slaves. Love is a promise, but a slave is in no position to promise anything to anyone. Never believe a promise from a man or woman who has no discipline. They have broken a thousand promises to themselves, and they will break their promise for you.
    Discipline is evidence of freedom, and freedom is a prerequisite of love.
    Allow discipline to permeate every area of your relationship. Let discipline guide you as a couple in your approach to the foods you eat, the ways you exercise, the way you spend your recreation time, the amount of sleep you get, your finances, your sexuality, the way you raise your children, and the ways you explore and share your spirituality.
    In the lives of successful people, we find that discipline is indispensable. Why would relationships be any different?
    Is your primary relationship thriving or just surviving?
    How much is discipline a part of that relationship?
    Do you want a successful relationship?
    What makes a successful relationship?
    A successful relationship is built when two people are striving to become the-best-version-of-themselves, challenging and encouraging each other to become the-best-version-of-themselves, and inspiring others to pursue their essential purpose by the example of their lives and their love.
    You are not just going to wake up one morning in a relationship like that. You have got to want it, and you had better want it bad. Your significant other has got to want it, and want it more than anything else. You have got to formulate a plan (which I will help you do in part three of this book) and you have got to work that plan every day with the discipline of a champion.
    If there is no discipline, it’s not love.
    H OW M UCH S HOULD W E G IVE ?
     
    M

any years ago I was dating a wonderful young woman, and on her college graduation day she gave me a copy of Shel Silverstein’s book The Giving Tree . Katie was that type of person. On a day when everyone was giving her gifts, she was giving gifts to others. My parents and teachers had read the book to me dozens of times during my childhood, but at that particular moment the book struck a deep chord in me again.
    At certain times in my life I have found myself to be too much like the tree—giving too much, in self-destructive measures; at other times I have found myself to