How to Love

Love is expressed as an action and experienced as a feeling. Yet, love has an essence that resists defining in any single way — it encompasses compassion, determination, tolerance, endurance, support, faith, and much more. If you're in the dark about how to love, this article should give you some food for thought, and perhaps teach you a little bit about how to love yourself, love the world, and love other people just a little bit more.

Accept your past. If you’ve been hurt in the past, you really need to begin to cope with that feeling before you can love someone else. You may feel that things you did in the past will make you unlovable, or that you have too many problems to be lovable. Maybe you feel that because your past relationships failed, all others are doomed to fail as well. But this is not the case and you should never feel for a moment that what has happened to you before will keep you from being happy now. Accept the things that happened to you, forgive, and move on. 

Get rid of the list. You know the list: that compendium of requirements that a potential partner or friend must meet, kept in your head or even written down. Yeah, get rid of that. Recognize that by keeping such a list, you’re creating the person you want to be with, rather than meeting the person you’re meant to be with. Real people don’t fit in boxes. You can certainly keep in mind qualities that you want a person to have, but don’t require someone to meet all of them and make sure you’ve got your priorities in order.

Reconsider your priorities. If you’re putting a nice butt before a stable personality, you’re going to have a really tough time in relationships. Same goes for things like valuing friends who get you into the best clubs over friends who’ll hold your hair back while you puke. Take those items from your list (discussed above) and separate them out into wants vs needs. Then take a hard look at why you prioritize the things you do. 

Open yourself to new possibilities. Once you’ve given some hard thought to what really matters to you in your relationships, take another look at the people around you and the people that you meet every day. Maybe people you’d previously dismissed will suddenly seem okay. You’ll find...potential. And that’s all you need to start with. Potential may not feel like love at first sight, but it can grow into the most beautiful and stable love you’ve experienced.