For many people, love, money, and fame are three mutually exclusive goals. You may find all three, but it is difficult to pursue all three at the same time. Based on prenuptial agreements and divorce settlements among the rich and famous, love gets the squeeze in this trio. Once money and fame have been achieved, true love is all but impossible to find.

For love to grow, it must be nourished and given time to develop. Chasing fame and fortune rarely will allow the time for this to happen. Those who choose either of these two must be driven and a bit of a workaholic. There is not much space for romance when the calculator sits on the table during a quiet dinner. The same is true if the appointment calendar becomes more important than candlelight.

The reality is that fame, fortune, and love are all important in society. It is not much fun to be in love if you are always broke. In a similar thread, without some measure of influence granted by at least limited fame, people do not accomplish much in life. It is just as narrow minded to say that love is what really matters as to focus a life only on money or fame.

The best life would be one that has found a reasonable balance or order for these three to live together in the same lifetime. Many prove everyday that striking or finding this balance is very difficult. The problem is that people let one of the three become too dominant.

If love becomes too dominant, it can become hard to earn a living. The saying goes, “You can’t live on love.” Love has to grant a measure of freedom for income to be produced. Even if you work at an everyday job, you have to spend some time doing it if you expect a paycheck. Love has to become something that can be carried around and shared at agreed times. This runs contrary to the romantics of the world, but love is a choice.

Being a choice, this explains why people find themselves no longer in love with their significant other. They have not been faithful to their choice. Love has been ignored. This is the same as saying that you have chosen not to love by simply not working to help the love to grow and mature.

If fame becomes too dominant, a person chooses to spend excessive amounts of time with adoring fans. His or her ego can demand more attention than one person or family can supply. When the person is treated like a regular human being at home, suddenly home becomes the last place on the list to go. As more and more time is spent away, love withers and dies. On the other hand, if the medium that produced the fame begins to wane, life itself can become intolerable.

Money is considered the real key to success in life. If you can pile up an inexhaustible supply of cash, it is believed that you will be able to live the life of luxury and ease. This sounds good except that the drive to earn money does not magically go away when a certain cash level is reached. Most of the fabulously wealthy people in the world still work every day.

Earning money has a way of consuming us faster than we can control. The idea that love will have to wait until the next deal is complete can become intoxicating. This can be overcome by getting love first and working on building wealth together. Wealth can be shared and enjoyed. Unlike fame which tends to be focused primarily on one partner, money can be a team effort.

So, the key is to find love first. In the search for love, find a partner who shares your financial goals and is willing to work in tandem to reach them. Do not force fame. If wealth is built, enough fame will come with it. If you must seek fame, do it slowly. This way, you will have time keep the love fires burning as a safety net when fame burns out.