“The love you take is equal to the love you make.” - The Beatles (Abbey Road)
Someday, I will hang those words in my house. They are a reminder that what we sow we will ultimately reap. I want to sow the seeds of love in everything that I do and every person I meet. It is a lifelong process. As I stated in Part 1, “Unconditional love is not something we can achieve and then hold onto the rest of our lives. It is constantly changing, like us.”
My life shall be an unending journey towards love for everything and everyone. The hurdles and strifes of life are constant tests. I don’t know for certain but I like to believe that this is not the only life. We have lived many times before this and we will live millions more. The growth of our soul is the goal. I think we are meant to achieve unconditional love in order to evolve into something new. It is what feels right. I often use a river as a metaphor for our life: sometimes the current is strong and sometimes it is weak; there are downed branches, rocks, and rapids to navigate. We can attempt to fight the river, but we will always lose. I trust the river no matter how frustrated or lonely I can become. I know that every piece of anger is temporary. And I know that every piece of happiness is equally temporary. We are constantly moving and evolving like the waves of the ocean. Nothing can stop the giant machine of the universe. And I would argue that we shouldn’t even try.
Acceptance for what IS is another important part of love. Happiness is simple. It is when our expectations are aligned with reality. The great thing about reality is that it never changes in the fact that it is the life around us. The only thing we need to change in order to be happy is being eternally grateful for what we have. To live, to read, to think, to love are the ultimate gifts that God and the Universe have given to us. There is an abundance of love that shines down on us every moment of every day. Of all the bad things that have happened in my life, I could not be more thankful because it is through those tough times that I was able to grow. Life is the ultimate puzzle with a simple key: love.
There are endless possibilities of what each of us can do and chooses to do with our time. We are living in the perfect sandbox. It is written in a very old book that humans were kicked out of paradise. I think that was a lie. Instead, I think we were cursed with the inability to see that we are and were always in paradise. But it is only through not knowing that we will ultimately understand and appreciate unconditional love. We are big kids just playing: creating serious games and pretending that all the things we make are of the utmost importance. It would be like making a sandcastle at the beach and spending our entire lives protecting it from the waves. The castle will eventually crumble and get washed back into the sea. There is no reason to grip onto anything. When we let everything go, we can find peace. And in those moments of peace we appreciate and love every grain of sand on Earth.
Everything is happening according to plan. There is no need to paddle upstream or try to fix the river. But we can practice navigating the rapids or avoiding the rocks. We can help people out of the water when they’ve fallen off their raft. We can love ourselves for making it this far. We can love every single stick and rock for helping us build our skills. We can love every person that helped build our raft. And we can love every person that tries to tip us over because even through evil we must use love to heal the wounds and scars. We learn how to use love as a tool and a medicine.
I can smile knowing that the road will not be easy. I can smile knowing that it will also be a lot of fun. There will be heartbreak and loneliness. There will be laughter and hugs. Through everything, we can learn to appreciate every little piece of it: like a painter loving every drop of paint on the canvas. Because when we step back and look at the big picture there’s nothing but beauty.
