© Elliot Essman 2005. All rights reserved.

These pages contain the complete text of Human Action, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's philosophy of human achievement.

Elliot Essman Public Speaking Training
Human Action Table of Contents
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Think for a moment that you are a recently promoted general. It's wartime. You now have magnificent armies under your command. You have a strong desire to use them and crush the enemy in one bold stroke. But, of course, you cannot. You must take all the strategic factors into consideration, coordinate with the other generals, and wait for the right time. Love is just like that: powerful, but the stuff of disaster if you unleash that power indiscriminately. Love takes wisdom—your own wisdom—to use properly. So if you don't have that wisdom (or call it perspective or experience) you'll have to go out and get it.

Learning from your love-life mistakes and analyzing your past patterns is one way to gain some perspective. You gain even more perspective on love by building the other areas of your life. You will have more to offer someone else if you yourself become more. You will be less likely to settle for a relationship just to get out of the cold. “Any port in a storm,” is a phrase that may come to mind when you think about your love-life. It will not apply because your life will no longer be a storm.

There's no way to stress this point too much. Success in life will almost always bring success in love. Your confidence will be up. Your judgment will be better. Your knowledge of yourself will be clearer. You will have the perspective to be patient. You'll also be better equipped to enjoy the process of finding a love rather than seeing it as a bothersome chore.

Another Basic Premise: Success in love should be parallel to success in other areas. That's what building the whole self, is about. Success is a process and also a choice of implementing values.

“Enjoying the process” is more than just a trite cliché. Think of this: if the process opens you up and leads to a worthwhile result, why shouldn't you enjoy it? In addition, there's a more important reason to focus on the process of loving, and not on a particular result. This relates to the notion that the ideal love is permanent.

Exercise: Enjoying the Process

As in the previous exercise, you're still in the restaurant. You've ordered your meal and have delayed your gratification. Now it's time to eat. But don't gulp it down. This food is not mere fuel. It's a gourmet experience, one of the finer things of life. Enjoy the process of eating, and while you are enjoying the food, concentrate on the process of loving, with all its joy and stimulation.