Learning to Love

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” — Paulo Coelho

In our solitary existence, we are in control. We are as happy or as sad as we want to be. We can choose to employ our emotions or keep them in our writing endeavors. However, life is not a slave we can command. It will show us our mortality by throwing surprises in our path.

Love can be either a pleasant or an unpleasant surprise, but it is one of the main ingredients that diversifies our journey. Your reaction to this sudden phenomenon shapes a significant portion of your life. It might cure your blindness, or it might make it worse.

Falling in love is easy, sometimes too easy. We might fall in love with someone slightly different from all the others we have ever met before. We may fall in love when someone tells us something new about ourselves. We may fall in love with the way someone acts or talks.

Every aspect of falling in love is fascinating. To consider the possibility of feeling great affection for a person who is exactly your opposite is one of its mysteries. As human beings, we fall in love in a million different ways.

But love is different. It is an entirely different phenomenon from falling in love. For example, we love someone despite his or her flaws. You can love someone because of how she treats you or by how much she loves you back. You can love someone because she’s exactly what you need in your life.

You must learn to love — everybody should. You need to know how to act just right and how to do what needs to be done. In this realm, actions are valued more than words. Sacrifice and compromise are required. You have to commit to the good days and the bad. You must stay strong in the face of the constant temptation of finding someone new.

So how do you learn to genuinely love another?

Getting your heart broken is an excellent way to start. For instance, you may have loved someone, and that person may have loved you back for a time. Then the boredom set in, and you watched as that person gradually slipped away. You realized how much you loved her, yet you saw it in her eyes that she was in love with another. Love will flee from your grasp…