Often, people get into introspective moments and conclude that they are not all that great. That perhaps they will never be happy at work, in love or in anything. They might have a poor body image, or believe themselves to be not very intelligent, or anything. What do you do when you care about such a person, and tell them what you really think; that they look great or are more intelligent than most people they know, but the words just fall flat against their despair?

What do you do? How long can you go on believing in the best of that person when they do not believe themselves? You can only build someone up so long before you get tired and stop doing that for a bit. It's not even necessarily that you have to do this all that often. It's that someone you care about is hurting because things may not be going well for them, or they don't feel very good about themselves, and there isn't much you can do about it. It's frustrating, especially when you know that ultimately, it isn't your responsibility no matter how you feel about the person.

I consider it a responsibility to try to bring someone close to you up when they are down, but it is hard to be creative when it comes to this. I think it's easier when you are young, but in the last seven or eight years life has become too complicated for simple compliments. Maybe solid solutions are required. A simple listening ear may no longer be adequate.

You want to help, but it's hard to know what to do anymore.

Here is a situation:

A father and his university-aged son have a very rocky relationship. It's to the point where they no longer speak. The father is faced with a choice: try to rebuild the relationship with his son, or do whatever he can to ensure his son's future, including happiness. This might include working longer hours and away from the family for extended periods of time, or offering views that might not be popular, but that he believes must be heard for his son's survival, if only he would accept the words. Is that a true test of his love for his son? To sacrifice his relationship with him to ensure that he has a better life? Is it similar to dying for your son's freedom, but just less dramatic?

How about a man doing something similar for his woman? Is it different? Is it appropriate to say that he loves her so much that he is willing to lose her as long as she recovers from her illness, financial situation, family situation or whatever it is that is making her "sick", or threatening her survival, be it physical, spiritual, mental or financial?

Have you ever loved someone enough that you would be willing to sacrifice your relationship to that person? Is that even love?

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son...

I suppose that this could be a true Thanksgiving. I SHOULD have done this a few weeks ago, but then, I suppose I didn't feel that thankful.

• I had an interview yesterday for something in small-scale project management with a placement agency. I mentioned it in the last entry. The girl that was interviewing me was rather young, and I think that I was able to convince her that I was actually a project coordinator in other jobs rather than a phone monkey in sales, so she is passing my CV and the results of our conversation on to the actual company. I should know tomorrow if the people there want to meet with me, and I expect that the interview would be later this week.
• Quantum called me about another sales opportunity (I get a lot of calls for sales opportunities; perhaps I should remove the word "sales" from my CV and replace it with "project"). I explained what I was actually looking for and after digging a little bit, it seems that there is an opportunity as a media relations coordinator that was put on hold because there was a death in the family of the one hiring. It sounds interesting; I get to travel locally and coordinate small media projects. Neither opportunity pays much, but at least with my age I can get to the top of their pay grade immediately.
• A former coworker, Gnocchi Linguine, just got married and I was invited to his marriage party. I was told a number of times that it would be great if I could go back there to work, although they agree that sales was not really my bag when I was there. As luck would have it, there was a project management position that opened up that same day. I later found out that Rick, my former boss there, thinks that I would be a great fit for the position, and certainly better than the girl that left it. (Clients actually LIKE me, for starters.) What I have to do now is to make contact with Posey Headlights, the woman responsible for that area of the business. Unfortunately, she is one person I avoided like the plague when I was working there. More on her some other time if this story develops.
• Rose. For three years of tolerating my willfulness and stubbornness, and for never giving up on herself.

There are other things, but I haven't thought of them yet. I will keep you posted.

Today is Rose's birthday. I can't tell you how old she is, but she is a perfect age. (If you know me and my passion for numbers, you can figure that out. 5 points to the first person that leaves a comment with the right age!)

Rose, despite the fact that I am not particularly financially well off right now, I truly want this day to be a special one. I mean that in the most sincere way. Happy birthday, love!

One of my best friends, Saab, who I met while studying math at McGill, got married yesterday in Wisconsin. It was rather sudden in the sense that although I knew last fall that they wanted to get married at some point, they didn't want to actually do it until next July. Why did they do it yesterday? She's not pregnant, if that's what you might have been thinking.

Two years ago, he left Montreal to go to Egypt to teach math to bratty rich Egyptians. (What do you call a person from Cairo? Caironian?) His contract was for two years. He was amazed at the lack of interesting women he saw there until the end of his first year. I was shocked when I learned last summer that he was twitterpated, and that after a few months he was ready to pop the question. I put my institutional doubts aside, knowing that he is an eternal believer, and congratulated him.