Love.
I think the pursuit of happiness is really the pursuit of being a lover. Every day, I realise that love is truly the basis of life for me, for life is only compatible with the law of love. It is the greatest guiding principle of human conduct.I have been able to conduct myself through love no matter how hard life may be. Loving and being loved has never failed me in this life. I do not know where life would have taken me if it were not for love. Giving love and being loved has sustained me on days when I felt like the world did not need me.I think of love as a circle; when you give it, there is more power within it. Like a circuit, when one part is lost or broken, the whole trajectory changes because the connection has been interrupted.
If we conduct ourselves with patience and kindness, without envy, without boasting and without unbearable pride; if we honour others as we honour ourselves, are not self-seeking, are slow to anger and do not keep records of wrongs; if we do not delight in evil but rejoice in the truth, then love allows us to protect one another, trust one another, hope for one another and persevere for one another no matter what may come.
[1 Corinthians 13]
For we give and are given in return.
To be a lover is to be of service to life and somehow, life becomes of service to us too. However it’s not because life suddenly becomes easy but because love gives us the strength to survive anything in life. Love softens what would have destroyed us, carries us through what we thought we could not endure and reminds us that we were never meant to exist alone. When we pour love into life, life often finds ways to pour back into us, it could be through people, unexpected experiences or the simple fact that we are still here despite everything.
Perhaps that is the exchange between life and love. We serve life through love and life serves us through the love we receive.
