Can true love last?

Posted on April 20, 2026 by David Joel Miller

True Love?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Can true love last?

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

Romantic love rarely lasts more than one to two years.

Initially, two people may say that they “fall in love.” This leaves the door open for people to also “fall out of love.” A whole lot of couples come to marriage counseling saying that they “love their partner” but that they are not “in love with them.” What they’re talking about there is that initial feeling of romantic attraction.

Remember that story of Cinderella and Prince Charming? Come back a couple of years after the wedding and take a look at the couple now. As our camera zooms in on Prince Charming, he is seated on the couch watching the television with a beer in his hand and wearing a dirty wife-beater T-shirt. Mr. Charming now has several days’ growth of beard on his face and a potbelly that gets in the way of fastening his pants.

We zoom over to Cinderella, who is working at the fireplace, poking at the ashes, trying to get the hunk of meat on the spit to cook. She is holding the hand of the youngest child Who is driving me from playing in the dirt. Cinderella has soot from the fireplace on her face, and the snot is running down her face, is pregnant out to – well, you know where.

Mr. Charming looks over at Cinderella and says, “I sure didn’t marry Cinderella, I got the ugly stepsister.”

Cinderella looks back and says, “Don’t you complain. I didn’t get Prince Charming; I got the troll from under the bridge.”

Romantic love rarely lasts more than one to two years. It has periods of ups and downs. Things are great, and then they go sour. They put in some extra effort, and things start to improve, only to find the love feeling fading again. Maybe they go away for a romantic weekend and feel another burst of falling in love. Sometimes they spend a weekend at an encounter group and feel they finally made a breakthrough, only to feel that feeling of love fading again.

Eventually, that feeling of passionate love dies down like a fire banked for the evening.

Now we look at the house next door, and we see an elderly couple who’ve been together for 50 years and say they love each other more than ever. What’s the difference?

That older couple experiences a different kind of love. One I’ve heard described as “compassionate love.” A working definition of compassionate love is “an anxious concern for the well-being of your partner.” That kind of love only grows over time unless the other person sets about behaving in a way that destroys it.

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Recently, I began working with a telehealth company called Grow Therapy. If you’d like to make an appointment to work with me, contact them, and they can do the required paperwork and show you my available appointments. The link for making an appointment to talk with me is: David Joel Miller, LMFT, LPCC

Life coaching clients must be working toward a specific problem-solving goal. Coaching is not appropriate if you have a diagnosable mental health problem. Also, life coaching is not covered by insurance. If you think life coaching for creativity or other life goals might be right for you, contact me directly.

Recommended Mental Health Books

David Miller at counselorssoapbox.com is an Amazon Affiliate and may receive a small Commission if you purchase a book or product using the link on this page. Using the link will not increase the cost to you.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Deference

Posted on April 19, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Deference

Deference
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Inspiration. Post by David Joel Miller.

“Rewards for good service should not be deferred a single day.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“Both positive and negative thinking are contagious.”

― Stephen Richards, The Secret of Getting Started: Strategies to Triumph over Procrastination

“Politeness is the first thing people lose once they get the power.”

― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

I wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Today seemed like a good time to do this. There are an estimated 100,000 words in the English language that are feelings related. Some emotions are pleasant, and some are unpleasant, but all feelings can provide useful information. I’ve also included some words related to strengths and values since the line between what we think and what we feel may vary from person to person. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you, please share them.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings, strengths, and values.

Emotions and Feelings. Inspiration

Recommended Mental Health Books

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, Please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Is Forgetting as you age a good thing? What is the blackboard effect?

Posted on April 13, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Forgetting?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Is Forgetting as you age a good thing? What is the blackboard effect?

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

It’s been common to dismiss the role of forgetting things as simply an unavoidable part of aging. But the more I think about it and read about it, the more I see an important benefit or reason why the ability to forget is a part of the human memory system. Not all forgetting is equal.

I’ve come to call this necessary forgetting the blackboard effect.

If you’re old enough to remember when we wrote on blackboards and later green boards, then you will recall that over time, the chalk built up on the blackboard. Eventually, the layer of chalk became so thick that when you wrote more information on that board, it was unreadable. Someone had to come through and wash those boards clean to allow new information to be written on the board.

Sometimes our brains need to erase old information to make room for the new. As we go through life, we learn the names of people. Later on, we tend to forget many of those early names. If each of us had to go through the entire list of names of everyone from each of our classes as we went through school, it would probably be late in the afternoon before we were able to recall the name of the person we were talking with.

One reason it gets harder for me, and other people in my age range, to learn new information is that it gets harder and harder to forget the old information. I first learned to do rudimentary programming using a RadioShack TRS 80 model 2 with eight-inch floppy diskettes. As I recall, the computer had 64 K of memory. We put more capacity into children’s toys that come free and fast-food lunches.

The problem here, however, is that whenever I encounter a problem with my current computer, I have to run through how did we do it when we had floppy diskettes, 8-inch diskettes, and then the five-inch and three-inch diskettes, and eventually the memory devices, flash cards, and expansion drives. When trying to do a new operation, my brain is cluttered with trying to forget all the steps that I’ve had to learn to do this operation on previous units with different hardware and software.

Forgetting may actually be the heart of wisdom.

We used to view older people as the source of wisdom. While the young hunters might remember the weather from last week and where they saw the deer yesterday, the elders remember all those dry years when the deer moved in One Direction towards wetter lands and more food, and how in the wet years they sought out different terrains.

Sometimes I wish I were better at forgetting.

Recently, I did some traveling to visit relatives. Some of it involved driving, and some involved flying. As a result, I had to use several rental cars. Now remember, I’ve been driving for 60 years. Probably more than that, but let’s not tell motor vehicles that part. As a result of all that driving, I’ve used a lot of different models of cars. I found it very difficult to adapt to some of the newer rental cars because they had features I didn’t know how to operate, and the controls I was used to were not located where they needed to be.

Even driving one rental car for a month and getting used to it did not prepare me for turning it in, and a few months later, I drove a different make and model, where the controls operated in another way. Trying to use the GPS and hitting the wrong button, suddenly having a video playing, and your directions disappearing, can be a very frustrating experience.

God, I wish I still had some of those old paper maps.

I find it very hard to navigate using GPS. For at least 50 plus years of my life and hundreds of years before that north was always at the top of the map. I’ve learned enough about the old ways to figure out where North and South, East and West, are by observing where the sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening.

Suddenly, the GPS lady shows me a map in which, to go north, I have to drive from the top down or even from left to right. It leaves me very disoriented. Younger people are used to just following the arrow and letting the GPS tell them if they’re going in the right direction, but I do not like trying to go West by driving away from the sun in the afternoon.

It is not remembering or forgetting that’s the problem.

As we age, it is important to let go of some of the fine details and learn to look for the general patterns. Let’s leave the fine details for the specialist historians. What is important for functioning as you accumulate more trips around the sun is cognitive flexibility. It’s deciding what things you need to remember and letting all the other fine details go.

Computers and even artificial intelligence are excellent at retrieving facts and sources that have long ago escaped my memory. But for deciding where to go and what to do, and even more importantly, whom to do it with, I need to be able to remember the broad principles I learned about what I like and what is acceptable to me.

I seriously question a lot of contemporary wisdom that tries to see immense patterns out of one incident rather than the long course of history.

My conclusion?

Try to keep exercising your brain by thinking deeply and by thinking for yourself. Let the trivial things go, but remember you decide what is important to you and what little details are trivial. Focus on the positive, and you’ll get more of it. Spending all your time looking for Unhappiness and you will live a life full of disappointment.

Recommended Mental Health Books

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Credibility

Posted on April 12, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Credibility

Credibility
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Inspiration. Post by David Joel Miller.

“If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.”

― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

“Toni’s Talk: When you invest in yourself, you have instant credibility with your biggest critic…you! As soon as you let doubt creep in—you lose that investment. Make a daily commitment to assess your worth with positive affirmations and watch your investment grow.”

― C. Toni Graham

“A preoccupation with the next world clearly shows an inability to cope credibly with this one.”

― Richard K. Morgan, Broken Angels

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings, strengths, and values.

Emotions and Feelings. Inspiration

Recommended Mental Health Books

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, Please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Connections, Friends, Relationships, And Feeling Lonely.

Posted on April 6, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Path to a better relationship.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Connections, Friends, Relationships, And Feeling Lonely.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

Are you lonely tonight?

Feeling lonely is a serious physical and mental health threat. By one estimate, feeling lonely causes as much damage to your health as smoking 8 cigarettes a day. Humans, like many other animals, depend on our mothers, our family, and our tribe for our very survival. Without the food, shelter, and protection older humans provide us, most would not make it to adulthood. Our relationships are a primary source of the way we develop our values and how we find meaning and purpose in our life or fail to find that meaning.

Generally, we think of adults and families as a positive thing. My work as a therapist has taught me that while some families provide enough for the person to survive to adulthood, many people leave their childhood and adolescent years with significant emotional wounds. Some people work through those wounds in their adult relationships, with their children, or by going through therapy. Other people perpetuate the same wounds on their children that we’re inflicted on them.

Relationships affect how you navigate life.

Throughout our life relationships play a major impact on our happiness. By relationships, I’m not talking simply about the primary, sexual relationships most of us will experience. Most people, when they go to a therapist for relationship counseling, are talking about marriage or couples counseling. But the other relationships in your life are equally important. How you make connections with other humans, the quantity and quality of your friendships, will have a major impact on your life.

Regardless of which relationships we’re talking about, creating new relationships, maintaining them, and sometimes ending them, are skills that need to be developed across the lifespan. Some people learned these lessons well, and others struggle to make or maintain relationships. Let’s look at some general aspects of how we create these various human relationships.

Relationships typically form around shared activities.

If you went to the same school, played the same sport, attended a religious service, or engaged in a cultural activity, you made friends because of the shared activities. Research tells us that most friendships involve at least three shared interests. Some people make long-lasting friends on the job if they work there long enough. But usually, those friendships, like school friendships, fade away if you do not have several other common interests.

Spending time together promotes familiarity, trust, and emotional safety. Finding things that you have in common increases that bond. Discovering significant differences can drive you apart. Whether your relationship with a friend or a partner can survive a serious disagreement depends both on your attitude and personality, and the number of other things that you have in common.

To build a good connection, you need to feel like you matter.

Social scientists called this attunement. It’s the feeling of being seen and understood. Spending time and conversation listening to each other and sharing honestly adds to this feeling of emotional closeness. Having empathy, the ability to look at things from the other person’s point of view, builds connection. A shared sense of humor helps. The more things you have in common, the more likely you will be able to make the relationship work. But even in couples with huge differences in their background, emotional closeness can overcome a lot of obstacles.

Relationships are maintained by an ongoing give and take.

A successful relationship can’t be a one-way street. The exchanges must move in both directions. One person may be able to provide more in one direction than the other. Both people should care about each other and should be supportive. It’s also important that there be openness and honesty between them. That doesn’t mean that you tell a friend all your secrets or the secrets of your partner and family, but you should feel comfortable letting them know who you really are.

Successful relationships also express appreciation and affection for each other. Good relationships involve shared time together. Some of these definitions of equal exchange have changed in the modern electronic era. One person may send more texts or messages than the other, but they should both be actively engaged in communication.

Successful relationships also involve some form of commitment to continue to see and talk with the other person and to care about them. When you don’t hear from a friend for several months, and your emails and texts go unanswered, the relationship is not likely to last.

Being from the same tribe for developing a sense of “us.”

If you share the same identity and values, have similar beliefs, or are working towards similar goals, it’s much easier to maintain a good relationship. Believing in common cultural values is helpful. By culture, I don’t necessarily mean race or ethnicity or religion. Friends often develop a joint “friendship” culture of the things that they do together.

Definitely, having shared interests contributes to a good relationship.

Historically, being of the same religion led to many friendships. Today, people often substitute other interests, such as hobbies, causes, or possessions like cars. Having a common interest gives you something to talk about and something to do together.

A good relationship should feel safe.

You may be able to tolerate a relationship where there are elements of danger, but it’s not likely to meet your emotional needs. Over time, it should feel safe to be vulnerable and let the other person see who you really are inside. We all have hopes and dreams, some of which we may not feel safe sharing with other people, but in a good relationship, that other person should be your safe person.

Overtime relationships should deepen.

In the early stages, being together might be fun and enjoyable. But as time progresses, going through the hard times together will bring you closer together or drive you apart. Being able to share your fears with each other and creating common stories about “remember the time” will bring you closer together.

There are some thoughts about connections, making and keeping friends, and the importance of having people in your life to avoid the feeling of loneliness. In future posts, I want to talk more about some of these themes and about other things that might help you go through whatever transition you’re going through in your life today.

Recommended Mental Health Books

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Happy Easter.

Posted on April 5, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Happy Easter.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Relationships, Past, Present, And Future

Posted on March 30, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Relationship.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Relationships, Past, Present, And Future.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist, Counselor, and Certified Life Coach.

How can you tell when you’re in a relationship?

When most people describe their relationships, they’re talking about romantic, sexual relationships. I had a client come back for a follow-up session and tell me they did not need relationship counseling because they were not in a relationship and did not plan to get into another one either.

Then they spent the rest of the hour describing their conflicts with their parents, who were separated, several exes, their boss, their coworkers, and we ended with a quick summary of all the problems they were having in parenting their children, some of whom were still minors and some who were adults.

It’s important to realize we have lots of relationships with lots of people, even when we’re not in the primary sexual love relationship. No matter what you do, you’d never completely get that ex out of your mind, even when you get them out of your bedroom. Those fights you had with them, the things they liked and didn’t like, continue to rattle around in your head pretty much forever.

How you go about getting into relationships and getting out of them continues to affect you long after they’re gone. The problems you had with your parents may have affected your relationship with your romantic partner, and cumulatively, all these problems may be affecting your relationships at work and in your social life.

What makes it a relationship?

As I started to work on this series of posts, I decided to do something a little different. I consulted with two esteemed sources of knowledge, Professor Google and Advanced Researcher ChatGPT. The question I asked was relatively straightforward, but it got very different answers.

The question I posed TO AI was

“Please define a relationship and explain how someone gets into and out of relationships.”

Professor Google clearly answered, presuming that a relationship had to do with romantic and or sexual activity. He emphasized the connection or bond between two or more people, their interactions, their shared experiences, and especially underlined the need for an emotional attachment and then investment in each other over time.

Having started in that direction a lot of the rest of Professor Google’s answer involved how a couple becomes attracted to each other, initiates a romance or courtship, and how they, over time, develop a couple’s identity. Professor Google emphasized their need to merge their social circles and to develop interdependence.

Research assistant ChatGPT, however, approached the question from a more sociological perspective. He emphasized the need for an ongoing connection of two or more people and described relationships as being divided into at least five separate types.

Clearly, Mr. ChatGPT included as type 1 romantic relationships, but he went on to include familial, professional, and casual relationships.

Mr. ChatGPT emphasized as key elements of a relationship, there needed to be interactions that involve communication and shared experiences. He also emphasized the need for mutual recognition, that they both acknowledge that they were in a relationship and have some connections.

Using this broader multi-type blueprint for relationships results in including a lot of non-romantic and non-sexual relationships.

Mr. ChatGPT emphasized that they must have shared expectations about roles, boundaries, and behaviors which are continuing over time and are not brief.

Using this definition of a relationship minimizes the role of attraction in creating a relationship, it emphasizes shared goals and objectives.

I believe that while Mr. Google’s model allows for love at first sight and arranged marriages to be considered relationships, Mr. ChatGPT’s definition requires a more thoughtful and sequenced approach. In fact, Mr. ChatGPT states, “entering is a process, not a single step.” To meet these criteria, couples need to fully develop their connection before it meets the definition of a relationship.

Using Mr. ChatGPT’s definition requires that the parties involved, not necessarily a couple, possibly an entire group of people, need to have a continuing reason to keep the relationship going. This definition allows for a very simple soft ending when one person decides to leave the relationship. It even allows a large number of people to end their mutual relationship.

Tying this back to our discussion of transitions in life, we can see that getting into and out of a great many relationships outside the primary romantic or sexual relationship can be stressful events.

In future blog posts, I’ll talk about how starting and ending all sorts of relationships can involve difficult transitions.

If something I’ve said here rings a bell with you or interests you in any way, please leave a comment and feel free to ask me any questions. My best wishes to everyone, regardless of the direction your life is going right now. We can’t always pick the direction of life’s journey, but we can’t pick our approach to those changes.

Recommended Mental Health Books

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Control

Posted on March 29, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Control

Control
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Inspiration. Post by David Joel Miller.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

― George Orwell, 1984

“Becoming fearless isn’t the point. That’s impossible. It’s learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.”

― Veronica Roth, Divergent

“You cannot control the behavior of others, but you can always choose how you respond to it.”

― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

― Marilyn Monroe

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings, strengths, and values.

Emotions and Feelings. Inspiration

Recommended Mental Health Books

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, Please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Riding the life bus.

Posted on March 23, 2026 by David Joel Miller

How full is your life bus?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Riding the life bus.

By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Counselor.

Life is a lot like a bus ride.

A metaphor I frequently use for my own life is how it has resembled a bus ride. Throughout life, as we ride along, people get on the bus, and they get off the bus. The longer you ride life’s bus, the emptier it gets.

Did you start life with a full busload of people?

If your life has been anything like mine and the lives of most other people I know, you started with some people riding the bus with you. Initially, you probably had a mother, a father, and maybe some grandparents. Unless you were the first or only child, you had older siblings, brothers, and/or sisters.

Did you start your life journey on an empty bus?

Some people begin life on a close-to-empty bus. You might’ve grown up in a home with a single mother or father or been raised by a grandparent or even a nonrelative. When you were first born, there may have been other people in the home taking the ride of life with you. But some of those people may have gotten off your bus even before you were old enough to remember them.

When you went to school, more people came into your life.

When you begin school, other people come into your life. I remember going to kindergarten and first grade. I made some new friends. Then we moved, and those early friends left my life. The more you move, the more people come and go, and the fewer people ride through life with you.

Sometimes, people get off the bus, and you never see them again.

Typically, the first people to get off the bus are grandparents or great-grandparents, if you are fortunate enough to have had the chance to meet them. Gradually, other older relatives exit your life. Sometimes, one or even both of your parents leave your life. When people leave because of death, you don’t see them again, at least not in this life.

Sometimes, people come back into your life.

Sometimes, a person who has ridden partway on the journey of life comes back into your life. I moved several times and, more than once, ended up meeting people at another school that I had gone to school with earlier. Sometimes, you are disconnected or alienated from a parent or grandparent and reconnect later in your life. Some people even reconnect with an old boyfriend or girlfriend from back in the day. It can be a very happy occasion when you reconnect with someone. But sometimes, you only reconnect for a short ride.

The people around you may keep changing.

One constant in life seems to be the way people come into your life and exit it. Some people you share the ride of life with are a joy to be around. Some people are a real pain. Well, you know what I mean.

Changing the route you travel in life means you ride with other people.

Family members may move away. You may get into relationships, and you may get out of them. Close friends may die or move away. Moving because of work changes your social circle. If you stop riding the same route, work a different job, or attend a different school, you probably lost contact with old friends forever.

As you get towards the end of the line, the bus gets empty.

One of the great challenges of accumulating more miles on your journey, adding more years to life’s tally, is that the life bus gets emptier. It takes a lot of effort to stay connected to other people. Unless you periodically invite more people to share your life’s journey, you may find yourself driving the bus all alone.

One way to avoid the loneliness that comes from traveling through life all alone is to make an extra effort at every stop to invite other people into your life. Sometimes, it pays to greet them at the bus stop and invite them to join you in your travels.

Making new friends and keeping your life full of companions requires a particular set of skills we call “making friends.” Whether you’re good at making friends or it’s a challenge, you must continue adding people to your life. Having friends and a support system is the best cure for loneliness. Loneliness is, after all, the result of having many people leave your life but not being able to invite more people to join you on the next leg of your life journey.

More on the topic of making and keeping friends can be found at: Friends

Recommended Mental Health Books

Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

Yes, I do. I can see private pay clients if they live in California, where I am licensed. If you’re interested in information about that, please email me or use the contact me form.

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

Want the latest blog posts as they are published? Subscribe to this blog.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For more about my books, please visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, please check out https://counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

Continuity

Posted on March 22, 2026 by David Joel Miller

Continuity

Continuity
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Inspiration. Post by David Joel Miller.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

― Winston S. Churchill

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

― Albert Camus

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? Advice for the Young.

Look at these related posts for more on this topic and other feelings, strengths, and values.

Emotions and Feelings. Inspiration

Recommended Mental Health Books

Staying in touch with David Joel Miller.

For more information about my writing journey, my books, and other creative activities, please subscribe to my blog at davidjoelmillerwriter.com

Seven David Joel Miller Books are available on Amazon now! And more are on the way.

For these and my upcoming books, visit my Amazon Author Page – David Joel Miller

For information about my work in mental health, substance abuse, and having a happy life, Please check out counselorssoapbox.com

For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel

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Does David Joel Miller see clients for counseling and coaching?

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