Thank you in advance for reading this column. I sure do appreciate all of the emails feedback, what an awesome community we have. I hope you will join me for the next few weeks as this is the first of a three-part series: Love, Happiness, and Success. And today we begin with love.

“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully” — Zig Ziglar

This is one of my favorite quotes by Zig. Many times when we think about love, oftentimes we can get caught up in only thinking about love in the romantic sense, and as a hopeless romantic myself, I totally get that. But there are so many other ways in which love has played such an integral part of our past, and where love is so very relevant to our present and our future. Love yesterday, love today and love tomorrow, so very powerful.

I am certain that if we think back to different times in our lives, we can very clearly see where love played a critical role in our own growth and development, our feelings, the encouragement of others and in the way we have done things in our own life. I am certain we can look back on the many people in our lives who showed us love, and we remember them with great fondness and appreciation. They were not “in love” with us, but they loved us, loved on us and took great care of us physically, mentally and emotionally. They have loved us enough to lead us spiritually too.

But what about the people we were “in-love” with? Are we still in love with them? Can we remember what being in love felt like and why we fell in love? If we still possess those feelings, that is awesome. Sometimes however, we forget too quickly or slowly, over time we can become complacent when it comes to those “in love” feelings. Maybe we don’t see it or feel it coming from the other person, or maybe we have stopped showing the same amount of “in love” feelings ourselves. What was it that we did yesterday and why and when did we slow down or stop? What has been the impact on our relationships? Whatever it is, let’s look now through new loving and re-energized eyes and hearts.

The good news is that today, right now in the present, we can offer love to others. We can help others, love on others, bless others, hug others, listen to others and show our love and appreciation today and every day. Whatever we used to do, we should start doing again. Not just for the people we love in our lives, but also for the people we are “in love” with in our lives. Today we can look at the people whom we love and who love us, and we can look at that person whom we are “in love” with through the same eyes that we did and with the same heart we had yesterday. Today is a day that can and should be filled with love. Today and every day.

The better news is that tomorrow brings with it even more opportunities to love on our family and friends in new and creative ways. All of our tomorrows in life provide us with opportunities to grow deeper “in love” regardless of the brevity or length of our relationships. It is so wonderful to see new love and the energy and bright eyes of hope and wonder as couples look to the future. And it is maybe even more incredible to watch love, true love, in people who have been together for decades. The spark is still there, the eyes express deep love, hands are held, affection is shown, car doors are opened, flowers are given, and love abounds as they remember the love of yesterday, the power of love in the present, and the hope of love in all of the tomorrows that are yet to come.

So how about you? When you think about all of the love in your life — past, present and future — and when you think about the feeling of being “in love,” does it give you a swoop in your heart and butterflies in your stomach? I hope so, and I would love to hear all about your love stories at gotonorton@gmail.com. Remember this, and please apply all of those things that love inspired yesterday, today and tomorrow. Because when we do, it really will be a better than good week.

Michael Norton is a resident of Castle Rock, the former president of the Zig Ziglar Corporation, a strategic consultant and a business and personal coach.