Love's Simple Truths: Rumi's Path of the Heart By Ross Heaven

Wherever and whenever people meet, it is never long before love and relationships - their problems and confusions, their bliss and beauty - is discussed. Love is as essential to us as air; a force that drives us all.
Love determines who we are, who we become, what we can achieve and, through this, how the world will evolve. It may even determine how long we live. Policy advisors to government now claim that the single strongest predictor of whether an individual will be alive in 10 years time is his answer to the question: "Does somebody love you?"
Psychologists have found links between love and self-confidence, mental, emotional, and physical well-being, and freedom from stress and anxiety. By sad contrast, those working with Romanian orphans have also found that children who are denied love can develop a "virtual black hole" in their brains where their emotional centres should be. Because of this, they can never grow up to be complete human beings.