With Love

Not too long ago, I got a fortune cookie in a Chinese restaurant that said: “Love requires hard work.” My first response was, “Duh!” until I reflected: How deeply do I actually understand this? Isn’t there a part of me that, faced with difficulty in a relationship, often thinks, “It shouldn’t be this hard”?

My teacher likes to say that we change not by wishing, but by acting. It’s nice to go on those loving-kindness retreats where you tell yourself all day, “May I be happy, may all beings be happy.” And wishing beings well certainly doesn’t hurt. But ultimately, it’s when things feel impossible and yet you resolve, “Whatever happens, I will meet this with love,” that love changes from an idea to a reality, and you find yourself changing too.

A lot of times people ask how they should deal with fear: “I’m afraid of rejection,” “I’m afraid of making the wrong decision.” Well, the first thing is: don’t argue with the fear, because that’s how it gets you. If you compile a dossier of reasons why you have nothing to worry about, the fear will win the case. The antidote to fear is not rationality, but love. You tell yourself, “Whatever happens, I will meet it with love.” And the panic starts to ease.

WITH love. Because love is not a feeling, not an experience, but an action. It’s something you carry with you on your long journey and choose to bring it to bear on whatever's happening. When you’re climbing the stairs. When you’re having a disagreement. When you’re taking your last breath. Love’s proof lies not in arguments or concepts, but in reminding yourself to do it, and finding, in fact, that you can.

Pieter Pourbus, "An Allegory of True Love" (1547)