First, this video is about de­ter­mi­na­tion. I ap­plaud Dame Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor in ev­ery way pos­si­ble for be­ing able to ad­mit her mis­takes, re­frain from be­ing bit­ter and jad­ed about re­la­tion­ships and to try, try again. We should all strive to have the courage to set­tle for the best for our­selves, and if we find our­selves in a dam­ag­ing re­la­tion­ship....then to move on. To me, this doesn't nec­es­sar­i­ly mean ex­clud­ing the for­mer loved one out of our lives, but in an ef­fort to aim for the best for our­selves, some­times our lives twist and turn and we must change ac­cord­ing­ly.
Dame Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor has had a very pub­lic life; yet, this hasn't seemed to di­min­ish her ca­pac­i­ty to love, and /or damp­en her abil­i­ty to love very deeply. I can­not imag­ine ev­ery as­pect of my own per­son­al re­la­tion­ships con­sis­tent­ly in the press, with those mak­ing light of my ex­pe­ri­ences, ac­tions and emo­tions by judg­ing me as a mere 'mat­ter of fact', as if dis­cussing a new liv­ing room so­fa. It takes a very strong hu­man be­ing not to be crushed by the pub­lic weight of the harsh crit­i­cism that is placed up­on the mo­ti­va­tions of per­form­ers that would, oth­er­wise, re­main pri­vate. Celebri­ties are (some­how) thought to have the mag­i­cal­ly abil­i­ty to elim­i­nate pri­va­cy from their lives in re­turn for fame and for­tune. This is an un­fair mis­con­cep­tion. We are all hu­man, whether we are a bak­er, bank teller, CEO, or celebri­ty and are sub­ject­ed to the same hurt when crit­i­cized neg­a­tive­ly and are the sub­ject of ridicule. Mon­ey can­not erad­i­cate those very ba­sic hu­man feel­ings. As a coun­selor, work­ing with those who have lost all sense of self-​es­teem...I be­gin each ses­sion with em­pha­siz­ing the 'per­mis­sion to be hu­man' and take it from there. Dame Eliz­a­beth Tay­lor is very for­tu­nate to have found love af­ter pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ships have end­ed. This is coura­geous and orig­i­nates from her own self worth, op­ti­mism and eter­nal hope.
By Richard Bas­sett