On Love and Fear.

"And if you feel that you can't go on. 
And your will's sinkin low 
Just believe, and you can't go wrong. 
In the light, you will find the road." 
~Led Zeppelin

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 I was talking to a friend today about Love. She was telling me that she had been so broken-hearted from past relationships that she wasn't sure that she wanted to go through it again. She told me that she sees life as a series of painful heartbreaks which only serve to fuck you up for extended periods of time. As she said the words, I could feel it and I could tell that she still hurt. She told me that she would not Love again because of the pain that she associated with the ending. 

For this, as for everything in life, it is about choice and thoroughly understanding what you are choosing. You can choose to live with fear, or you can choose Love. I myself have said a million times, "I think I'm done." When the topic of Love comes up. My Bestie always replies, "I've heard that before." She knows it's the pain talking and that I will always come out of it and jump right back in with both feet. I know it too. It's how I roll. All feet. I have lived without Love. It is fine. But Love is badass, Love is always worthy of a capital letter. 

FEAR 
When a person decides to choose fear, they are choosing a cage from which to experience life. We are born with the capacity for great Love, but over time, we experience trauma, heartbreak, and great pain at the hands of great Love, so Love becomes our scapegoat. But without Love, we are stilted and jaded. The world is a less beautiful place because our under-used hearts lose their ability to identify beauty as time passes. Our capacity for growth and development lessens. Additionally, we are by nature, pain-averse. So we do what we can to deal with or dull the pain, which very often ends up keeping us from feeling other things as well. Soon enough, in a life lived without Love, the world becomes a never-ending cycle of drudgery. There is less pain, but there is less joy as well. Life becomes as predictable as a never-ending series of sitcom re-runs. Sit-coms which were never really that good in the first place. 

LOVE 
Love is birth. It is in Love that we awaken. It is potential in the form of human emotion. Artists know that in order to create anything, they must feel a Love for it. Communication of something loved? It is a poem, a song, a dance created to awaken the light. In Love you live fully, you are busting out of your skin with vigor. You see the potential in everyone and everything, especially yourself. Love is brave and optimistic and compassionate. In Love, you are sharper, brighter, you feel like a hero. You are open and you feel more like yourself. You trust more. Everything tastes, smells and looks better. If you have been in Love, you know this. You remember that feeling of boundless energy. Of endless optimism. You remember who you are in Love. 

If left unmanaged, Love will shrink and die. When fear is left unmanaged, it becomes boundless. Choosing fear is the easy path in the beginning, as it is effortless. Choosing Love, therefore, must be a conscious effort of will, stamina, and grace. Love looks so easy in the movies and in TV. It is falsely represented as the happy ending to every predictable story. It is the end game sold to us in all manner of media. But Love is not the ending. It is the beginning. That is why we want that story. Because it ends where our real experience begins and gives us room to dream into how easy it is going to be. 

Love is fucking hard. It is scarier than almost anything else. This shit requires you to be AWAKE. There is no other way to put it. You must go bravely into Love ready to demand the best for yourself and give with the passion of an artist. Do not go into Love half-assed. Do not go into it fooling yourself. Above all, do not go into it settling for less than you deserve. You will be disappointed in yourself, in the person you are with, and then, you will find yourself, once again, in great pain, wondering where you went wrong. 

Make no mistake, it takes courage and it is not easy. But the reward is a connection that enables you to fulfill your highest potential. We are here to Love, pure and simple. Not to accumulate. Not to exert control. The test and the challenge is to Love. Everything else is secondary. 

Millions of people choose NOT to do it every day. What's your choice?

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