I was talking with someone earlier in the week who responded privately to something I wrote on social media about my family. They asked how I found love, and it wasn’t until now that my response struck me. I didn’t find love. In fact, I never have.
Now before you scratch your head and get all confused, I have a lot of love in my life. A lot of people call me “the love guy” because I named my nonprofit Just Love More, and I always end my interactions with that phrase at the end of every one of these love letters. Love is kind of my thing. But I never once found it, especially when I was trying to.
I didn’t grow up with much love in my life. I didn’t feel loved, didn’t know what it was to really love or be loved. I didn’t find it because I didn’t know what I was looking for, only what I was missing. Love can’t really be defined because it is different for every one of us; love doesn’t sweep in and make everything better, it helps us feel less alone while we make ourselves better.
Ultimately, love found me when I stopped trying to force it into a box it would never fit into. I stopped looking for love and started learning to be happier with myself. Instead of always focusing on how alone and sad I was, I began to actively look for things about myself that I liked, because that was harder than labeling the things I didn’t. I focused my attention on growing the good and found that I had less time to spend dwelling on the bad. When you spend less time on something, it stops growing.
I challenge you to look for the good things about yourself and grow them. Stop giving your attention to the things you don’t like about yourself and those things will take up less space in your life.
Never forget that I love you, and that excludes no one.
Love,
