With Valentine’s Day coming and elections being held, we can all use a lesson in keeping it real. Here’s an good article from the Huffington Post by Michael Yapko, Clinical Psychologist, Author

This week’s election of a Republican senator in Massachusetts has been widely characterized as a symbol of the anger and disappointment the public feels with the government. The public is so disenchanted with the status quo that somebody new–anybody new–so it seems, will be better than what we have. This was the same wish for a miracle we had when we elected Barack Obama and fully expected that his calm demeanor and superior intellect would make him the savior President.

Did the people of Massachusetts know anything of substance about the Republican candidate besides his high mileage truck and appearance in Cosmopolitan? Similarly, did people know anything of substance about Sarah Palin before committing to her heart and soul as the new savior of the party? What is this willingness to attach to someone virtually unknown on the mere basis of a hopeful expectation that this person can rescue us from our worry and distress?

I’m using political examples to make a larger point. Americans are getting angrier and angrier, the conversations both public and private are getting more heated and crude, and people have yet to realize that they are fueling much (not all) of their own anger and discontent by having such superficial styles of assessing people and by having such incredibly unrealistic expectations. I know, because I have been studying the phenomenon of depression in people for more than 30 years. Depression is so often a result of our unsatisfying and even destructive relationships with others. When we trust the wrong people, attach ourselves emotionally to people who can’t (or won’t) provide us with what we want, and when we are disappointed or even abandoned by people we look to for comfort, depression is a reliable consequence.

–Read the rest for realistic expect in relationships.