On Life and Words

We've all heard the stories of unrequited love... boy meets girl, girl meets boy... one of them falls in love with the other, but the other doesn't reciprocate. The end result in these stories is that the party who falls in love ends up having a broken heart "forever." There are many memes and quotes out there that portray unrequited love as a noble thing, as something that is perfectly normal and healthy. Nothing could be further from the truth. In many cases, there are situations where one person loves another person deeply and truly and the other person doesn't love them back in the same way that they love the other person. This is considered "unrequited love." And this is also the danger of "unrequited love." Loving another person who doesn't love you back in the same way, or even at all, is not a problem in and of itself. It's whenever you place the hope and expectation that the other person will love you in return in the sa...

Love is hard. Loving people is harder. We all have a very normal human desire to both love and be loved. The word love is not a noun, it's a verb. This is where many people get so twisted up when dealing with their love for others. Our society tends to consider love a "thing," when it is an *ACTION.*  We often talk of "loving" things - ice cream, pizza, places, etc. That's not love, that is an intense LIKE of something. Love means we are going to do whatever we can possibly do to ensure another person's happiness or well-being. It is both an action and an emotion. When we love someone, we (hopefully) truly want what is best for them - we want them to be happy, safe, successful, etc. Many times, however, people are quick to use "love" for others as a way to receive love in their own lives. The word love is spoken in an attempt to get the other person to reciprocate. This isn't love. True love doesn't require that the other person ...