What is ‘self'? Self is core, essence of who we are. Can you really change and alter ‘core', ‘center'? Can you change it successfully and permanently and be actually happy with it? As human beings, we need more to evolve and not to merely improve. Evolution firstly requires us to be accept who we are and to learn to love ourselves for that. The quest for self-perfection has nothing to do with ‘Self' and our own satisfaction. Ironically enough it has everything to do with society and norm, their demands to make you force fit in to pattern of mediocrity.

Our society has a malaise of perfection, it conditions in us a dissatisfaction with what we have and a blind craving for whatever we don't have. While we are growing up, we are made to realize that we are less than perfect in one way or other. It usually starts with sibling comparison. "Why can't you be like your brother/cousin/ so and so" , or that column in your report card marked with red that says: ‘Improvement is required/ Can do better". Mothers would openly deplore their daughters' lack in looks department. From quest to better grades, competition turns towards landing a better job, bigger car, house and better looking spouse. Aren't Parents supposed to love you unconditionally, to accept you what you are?

Thus initially our well-meaning parents perch us on treadmill of perfection and we take it from there onwards. Spouses specially women do perfect job of nagging their husbands into doing better , becoming some one else. Although it is ‘personality' or ‘self' of spouse that they fall in love with and not potential of change or flexibility. Thus on all fronts and being pressurized from all directions; we struggle to improve, to escape from what we are! We struggle to get accepted, become better adopted to society's standards and in other words become another ‘stereotype'.

We always want to become someone else, fit into some standard defined by society. And society keeps on raising bar, placing it higher and higher. In quest to ‘become' someone else, we become ‘something else'. It is so because process of change and improvement is also one that of alienation; from ‘core' ‘self'. In pursuit off improvement, we often get estranged from who we really are. In our obsession with ‘I have to' ‘I want' ‘ I need to'; we have forgotten what it is like to simply be ‘I am'.

Thus ‘self improvement' in actuality is merely a negation of ‘self' and ‘Self' needs affirmation and not negation, if we ever need to find happiness and contentment. . Others would still criticize your physical features, you ideas, ideals and attitude towards life, but it doesn't matter. So put away that self-help manual. Tear a page out of book, make an airplane with it let it fly. This time when you look at mirror; instead of deploring your lack of a bigger bust, give yourself a big hug for who you really are and what you actually have.

A Higher Risk of Infidelity

While conceding some marriages and relationships between older women and younger men do succeed, Houston states that they start out with a strike against them. She warns, “A woman should think long and hard before entering into a relationship with a man who is considerably younger than herself. The greater age difference, greater risk of infidelity.“

Precautions Women Can Take

Houston cautions women already involved in relationships with men much younger than themselves to familiarize themselves with telltale signs of infidelity so they can take positive action at first sign of trouble. (See Ruth Houston’s website www.IsHeCheatingOnYou.com for more information on 21 categories of telltale signs.) “Keep lines of communication open, says Houston. “If you sense a distance developing between you, or you spot possible signs of infidelity, talk things out together so you can keep your marriage on track.”

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