I find that there have been many situations in deeper conversation where people ask me what I think of love and my answer leaves them staring at me taken aback, very confused by the words that just struck right into their hearts. It is because for one reason or another, we all have stopped talking about love. We talk about things that entertain us, stories that make laugh, situations that frustrate us, and little daily antidotes that spark conversation. But ask yourself this, how often do you sit down and reflect about the single most important, beautiful, and terrifying thing that you will ever encounter in your short life? The answer for me, is every day. Why? Because everything else is disposable and empty.
When you leave this world you will not take with you the shiny car sitting in your driveway, the touchdowns you had in high school, or the awards and medals you have saved to remind yourself of your self worth. No. The only way you exist in the end is through the love that you have shared with others. Even if you were famous in one way or another, even if you are remembered after you are gone, that is not preserving any part of you other than a memory. The people you touched, the hearts you changed, the lives you altered, and the emotion that you brought to life with those people, that is what keeps you alive, you will live forever in the love of others. This is because love is endless. As Morrie Schwartz said in my favorite book Tuesdays with Morrie, "Love is what keeps you alive, even after you are gone."If you are rethinking some things right now, you are probably questioning something everyone seems to question their entire life, what is love? If love is what gives my life meaning, if it is the sole way I can leave any part of who I am in this world, what is it? One thing that love certainly is, is terrifying. It is vulnerable, and we don't like to feel vulnerable as people. We like answers, we like order, and we like to protect ourselves. We don't want to take a chance on believing in something that could hurt us or let us down. However, if you live life in this fashion, you end it with nothing. You must embrace love, in order to embrace true and endless happiness. Embracing love means accepting the fact that there is so much about it that you will never begin to understand. Love is illogical, unpredictable, and unexplainable. Therefore here is the twist in my story, my "explanation of love" is that there is not truly an explanation, and that is the single most beautiful aspect of love.
Love is an energy with endless power and needs no explanation. It is what will carry you when you don't believe in it. It is the look in another person's eyes when no words need to be spoken to express how deeply moved you are by their presence. Love is tears in difficult times. Love is the way it feels to hold a small life you brought into this world. Love is promises and devotion. Love is humility, honesty, and gratitude. Love is a feeling inside of you that takes over your every thought. Love is painful. Sometimes love gets ripped from you when you aren't ready to let it go. Love can give you hope in the most hopeless of situations. Love has so many forms. Above anything else what you need to understand is that love will never fail you.Now a lot of you just shook your heads and debated not continuing to read this when you read the words "love will never fail you". How can that possibly be true? Have I not seen the divorce rate, do I not understand that love fails every day? Have I never experienced heartache? No, I understand all of those things. The thing many people do not realize is that people fail, and a lot of times we don't understand exactly what our plan is with love. We can never fully know what love has in store for us. What we can know is that love never fails. Love is believing in the plan it has for you. Love is having trust in an endless love, and in the power that holds.
My advice to you is to stop being afraid of the unexplainable. Stop trying to make yourself immune to emotion because that is what you believe society wants from you, or because you think that is the safest choice that you can make. Life isn't about being safe and never looking foolish, life is about being alive. My advice is to accept when love seems to fail you and realize that it truly has not. I am telling you to take down your walls, and feel love. So many things in this world are mediocre and shallow, love should never be one of them. Open up your heart to it in every aspect of your life. Take it all in. Be vulnerable. Take a chance at being broken. Fight like hell not to let it go when you have. And if it does go, appreciate it, and be thankful for every moment it was with you. Because it returns in so many different ways and forms. Hug your parents, try to understand their love for you. Hold your children, tell them how proud you are of them and how blessed you are to have something in your arms that you love so completely. Open up to your friends, let them love you for who you are, do not portray an image that you feel they would want more. Love the people that you meet, learn from them. When you speak to people, put away all distractions and really be with them, listen to them, and be grateful for the opportunity you have to share conversation with them. Make sacrifices for those you care about. If you are in a relationship or friendship where love and respect does not exist, move on, and understand that love is not something you can live without. Understand that you deserve love. Love yourself for all that you are. Love the god that you believe in, feel every spiritual emotion that you desire. Love your community. Love your enemies. Love the person you are with, fully, publicly, endlessly, love them to a point where it actually physically moves you, and do not let that end. Never hide your love, never repress it, and never lose appreciation for it. Recognize how important it is. Understand deep in the core of your being that it is truly the only thing that really matters. Strive for it. Fight for it. Live in it. Realize the explanation for love, is that there is no explanation, and stop searching for one. Because that fact is the most beautiful and wonderful gift this world has given you.
