How do you love?

I was having dinner one night when I saw a couple, using a selfie stick, posing for a candid picture. A picture of them smiling at each other. They then proceeded to have dinner without a single word.

This made me think about love and connection in this time and age and questioned my own perspective on love and how it has changed over the years.

When I was younger, it was filled with infatuation and excitement. Love was beautiful and wonderful in all its niceties. Then as you grow older and in your search for your own identity and self, you realise how two people, as good as they are as individuals, are just not meant to be together. And that’s ok.

As we approach this journey of adulthood, love suddenly seems unapproachable and complicated. The fear of getting hurt overwhelms the ability to love. The superficiality of society and the need to fulfil status quo overshadows the authenticity of love. A reliance and a selfish need for companionship starts to build an individual’s ideals of love.

Love, like all the other essentials of life like peace and joy, is simple. It becomes complicated if it’s not build from within. If you do not first love yourself, it is impossible to love another human being. Subconsciously, there would be a need to make the other half love the parts of you that needs it and an insecurity that he will leave you for your insecurities. Then it becomes a vicious cycle of emotional battle. What for?

My mom used to tell me to find someone who loves you more than you love him. That made sense before but it doesn’t connect with me anymore. When you start to measure love and the things you’ve done for each other, you start to cover the graciousness of love. You stop giving and start taking.

Love needs no status and it is not meant to be a show. When you give, you gain. It is in that where love becomes vulnerable and a good kind of scary and having the ability to love is so much greater than looking to be loved. I’ve always seen a relationship as walking your own path in parallel with your partner. You go through life hand in hand, never one in front of the other.

Therefore, let this coming Valentine’s day not be a day of superficial romance, but a reminder of the importance of self love, and with that, you open your heart and soul to beautiful moments, wonderful presence and to great love.

“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” 1 Corinthians 13:4–8

This….is unconditional.

With Love,
Eve
Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand