About giving love

When you go on a date, you always tend to dress well. You get obsessed with your dressing to a point where you become a little self-conscious. You want to make sure that you want to impress your date to stand the best chance with them. Now, I am not saying that dressing well is not important, but to dress to impress is more like seeking validation. You are always sub-consciously thinking that you have more interesting stories to tell. You think that your date should listen to what you have to say rather than the other way around. Let us imagine for a moment that you free yourself from the expectation of looking good and impressing. If you are listening to their stories and what they have to offer, then they will feel happier indeed. This is because your mind is sub-consciously now programmed to portray the other person as interesting and your words and actions will convey a message that you want to hear more of them.

In the above example, I want to stress on the importance of loving someone. I know indeed that the best feeling in the world is to be loved by someone, however, to be capable of receiving love you need to shed your selfishness for a while and prepare to give love.

Love can never be given by trying to impress someone or seeking validation from them for your niceness. By doing that you are trying hard to make them love you and all that feels forceful. Love can however be given by empathizing and listening to their life and life problems. You are not going to offer them solutions to their problems, but you are giving them a shoulder to cry on when they need it the most. Giving love entails you to be always a good listener with the importance of speaking only when required.

To love someone though, you need to be in love with yourself. You need to list out your strengths and weaknesses, address your recurring thoughts and be prepared to grind out single-handedly when the going gets tough. Needless to say, a person who is in love with himself is constantly striving to become a better human being. I realize that happiness is not a destination to be reached but a journey to be enjoyed. Material possessions, romantic love, birth of a child, money, sex, fame, etc. can all give momentary happiness or long-term happiness. But in-between the occasional spurt of happiness lies the grind of hard work and dedication.

Love is the force that keeps all human beings, and in a broader context, all animals bonded with each other. We cannot imagine a life devoid of love. There are so many people in this world without a family, without the comfort of a partner, without the feeling of calling their house a home and due to this reason, we need to realize the importance of giving love. It starts from the simplest action of being kind and believing in noble values. Helping an old man cross a busy street, giving directions to people on road, helping a person move out are all common acts of courtesy but they are rare in this modern world. I once helped a stray dog who was brutally injured. I called the animal welfare department to inform them about the mishap and they immediately rushed to the place with help. After this random act of compassion, I felt a kind of satisfaction I had hardly felt before. Most people don’t realize that they have so much to offer to this world. We are yet to achieve our full potential and when we do that, we can attain long-term satisfaction.

During a cold September evening in Germany, when I wondered about these thoughts, I realized that the world needs more people like me and I have a lot more to offer to this world.