I recently was discussing developing relationships with a close professional in the medical field and she recommended that I read the The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. She informed me that even though it was originally written specifically to married couples it would be very worthwhile to read it to help people in all of their relationships. The original book entitled The 5 Love Languages: The Secret in Love that Lasts sold more than 10 million copies. Each year the book has sold more copies than the year before. It has been translated into fifty foreign languages around the world.The author feels the the phenomenal success of this book was that its message focuses on our deepest emotional need: the need to feel loved. For married couples, it provides the insights and practical tools for keeping emotional love alive in a marriage. Thousands of couples have indicated that the idea of the five love languages brought “new Life” to their marriage. He never anticipated that numerous single adults would also read it, but they did and told him how it helped them in all of their relationships. He therefore, wrote the copy I read which is The 5 Love Languages SINGLES EDITION.
According to the author, “Married or single, young or old, every human has the emotional need to feel loved. Nothing has more potential for strengthening one’s sense of well-being than effectively loving and being loved. He reaches out to those never married, divorced, and widowed. He believes our deepest emotional need is to feel loved, and our greatest successes will be obtained by loving others.His book is designed to hlep you do both of these things effectively. The five love languages are:
Words of Affirmation
Gifts
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Physical Touch
Our jobs as media specialists, expose us to many people from various walks of life. Besides all the administrators, faculy and staff we interact with, we also need to relate with all the sudents, as well as their parents. On a personal platform, we also have relationships with our spose, family members, their extended family, neighbors, friends, and other significant people in your life of various closeness. It is not always easy to understand their primary love language and also to recognize our own. The author helps us do both by giving the reader examples of dozens of adults and explaining their journey into their personal lives.He gives us ways to observe our own behavior, observe what we request of others, listen to our complaints, ask the right questions, and provides an actual love language profile that you can take and also give a copy to have others take as well.
The author feels that by discovering your own love language it will help you understand why you feel more loved and appreciated by certain people than you do others. After reading the book I did make a ccipy of the profile to take and give to my own husband. It can be a very helpful tool in explaining relationships, as well as strengthening them.
In closing, I also wanted to add another note about the graph published in the August 21st edition of USA TODAY in case you did not see it. It was entitled : Print is not dead to Gen Z students:
85% say reading physical books helps them learn about history
76% prefer doing reading tasks on papger vs. online
34% say they use physical planners
I always feel information like this is powerful data when justifying our need to keep print a vital part of our collection.