The need for love and intimacy is a fundamental human need, as primal as the need for food, water, and air.

The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.

Intimacy and community buffer stress.

In business, when you can meet an unmet need that is this primal, even meeting it in a superficial way can create a multi-billion-dollar business - e.g., the chat rooms in AOL when it first came out, or the lounges in Starbucks, or the billion people who are on Facebook - even though these are hardly the most intimate of life experiences.

In an era in which war and terrorism - at home and abroad - are often based on racial, religious and ethnic differences, rediscovering the wisdom of love and compassion may help us increase our survival at a time when an increasingly divided country and world so badly need it.

'I resolve to eat less food' sounds good in theory, but it's often hard to sustain. And if you believe that it's all willpower, then you're likely to be upset with yourself if you don't succeed.