Love > Everything

Love it, change it, or leave it.

This afternoon I had an insightful conversation with a very nice German man. This happens to me often in life due to my social butterfly nature. I never meet a stranger and can usually strike up a conversation with anyone about anything. It is from these random great conversations that I walk away with new outlooks on life and such. After he allowed me to chatter on about life for longer than most would, he stopped me and said, "I want to tell you something that is the one rule in life you should go by above everything else. Love it, change it, or leave it."

I have been known to throw my heart into things when most would say I shouldn't. I, however, believe that everyone should fall in love with as many things as they can when they can. Most people go through life being too scared to do that and I will never be one of those people. Perhaps it is the "change it" part that I struggle with. I hold such high expectations for those things that I love and want them to just be right. I seem to forget that sometimes to make what we love right we have to make the effort for it to be the way we want it. That means changing your circumstances to get what you want.

How do we determine whether what we love is worth the change? We can't. It's always going to be a guessing game as to whether the choice we make for love will be worth it in the end. If we aren't willing to even chance the change, then we should leave it. Because loving something and resisting the change to make it right is pointless. And who has time for lost causes? They say, "Practice what you preach" but I know even as I write this that the "leave it" part has always been my weakness. It doesn't matter if my brain says, "Love it, change it, or leave it" because my heart will always win. I can't leave anything that my heart goes after. I'd rather it leave me. I'll take that hurt over being the one who walks away and wonders "What if?" Yet, if I'm not willing to change it for my benefit then why am I loving it at all? Am I only punishing myself to love something I know can never change? Perhaps. But, I'll take the pain in exchange for all the other ways it makes me happy. The love is greater than everything else. The love is the spark inside that I turn to when everything else is going wrong. Even if that's wrong, at least it gives me the hope I need to get through each day.

So, despite the great advice from the German, there are some things I love that I refuse to leave even if I'm not able to change them. If that makes me a fool, then I'm okay with that. At least for now.

-ldw