Both the visit count for my blog A Valentine Day Tribiute to My Wife 情人節献给我的终身伴侣http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=15663

and student questions during my Tsinghua Q&A sessions http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=276893 and

http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=276894 indicated that finding a life partner is foremost on young scholars' mind. This is of course stating the obvious. It is equally obvious that this is a task of stochastic optimization that is full of perils and uncertainties in the modern age (to use an analog for the decision and control field). Both you and your potential partner do not have enough life experience to make optimal decisions which is the reason for arranged marriages by elder family members in olden times. But even if you were lucky to find THE optimal solution on expected or average value basis for this stochastic optimization problem, it is of little comfort (as I have said it before: having one foot in boiling water and the other in freezing water do not mean comfort on the average). Fortunately, another analog from decision and control comes to the rescue, namely, adaptation and learning .　Modern marriage is a learning and growing process – Getting there is all the fun. This means learning about life and each other and grow along with each other. In modern civilization, “staying put“ means to be left behind and becoming irrelevant. This is the saddest thing that can happen to a person. In this sense, getting a “good enough” solution is quite feasible and satisfying. You and your partner can strive towards the optimum through disagreements, quarrels, compromises, understanding, joy, discovery, and ultimate fulfillment.  Good luck to all you young lovers!