It’s the opportune time to expand on this new definition of love. We’ve treated love like a noun even when we say it is an action. It’s still a noun because we think that love can be measured, and as a result, we use love as a tool for comparison. In our subjective experience, we feel less loved and more loved depending on what society shows us love looks like.

By comparing love, we are led to believe that love is something to be achieved because of the perceived lack of love in our lives. So, we treat love as though it’s a product or a pill we can take to make sure that our life produces more of it. What if I told you that love is no different than the blue sky? It’s always there, but there may be some clouds that block our perception of it. Our goal, then, is not to seek love but to remove the barriers to love.

A Storm is Brewing

Resistance is the clouds that block us from love. This is something that I’m working on myself. By detaching from things I resist, I’m not giving them my energy. Meanwhile, I’m judging what is happening and rejecting my entire experience. Detaching is an escape, but my escape is a form of resistance. During the situation, I’m constantly saying, “I shouldn’t feel like this, or this shouldn’t be happening this way.” As a result, I am fighting a war within myself. Love doesn’t fight the moment; it embraces it. Even when I feel nothing but meaninglessness, I can take it in with open arms.

Social Comparison Theory

A very common way to obstruct our view of love is to compare ourselves to others. Psychologist Leon Festinger formulated comparison as an innate drive when he first formulated the Social Comparison Theory (SCT) in 1954. According to SCT, we compare ourselves to others to gain an “accurate” self-assessment of our abilities and opinions so that we can function in the social world. There are two forms of comparison. You engage in upward comparison, comparing yourself to someone better off. Consequently, through this comparison, we identify the goals of self-improvement and self-defeat. There is also downward comparison when we compare ourselves to someone worse off. This makes us feel better about ourselves and gives us a sense of superiority. Both judgments become the primary engines of emotional suffering because they define our self as either better or worse.

Comparison is only possible if we see the other as different from ourselves. The idea of perfection is ruined by comparison, because someone will always be better or worse than you. This makes self-acceptance conditional and not at all love. The comparison is a cloud that blocks us from seeing the blue sky of love because we’d rather ride the roller coaster of temporary inflation and/or deflation.

The Highs and Lows of Comparison

When we believe someone is better than us, we tend to blame our gloomy day on them. It’s a feeling that the other person’s success diminishes my own, or that there’s a standard that I’ve yet to reach. It’s a mistaken belief that someone else’s material success reduces my value, which is only true if I believe my value is relative rather than intrinsic. It doesn’t really matter whether we judge someone up or down. They both become barriers to love. If I judge someone as inferior to me, I create a hierarchy of worth. If I judge someone as superior, I create a lack in myself. In both cases, comparison denies my own intrinsic worth. Like clouds in the sky, I’m not able to see and love my perfection because comparison is consuming it.

If I try to control life, I can never perceive what life is trying to show me. I will only see what I want to see. What I want to see will always be clouds. It’s only when I stop grasping for what I want and accept what is that love can reveal itself. The same thing can be said about people. True love is the acceptance of flaws. Society has told us that love is this mystical thing that can only be felt, but when it comes to people, this is the easiest definition I can give. We can only find true love when we stop judging others’ mistakes and misfortunes. We are fighting someone’s imperfections while saying that we love them. Love is not something that we do, but a spontaneous presence that shows up once we stop needing to fix others.

Love Everything

Yes, even negative emotions can be met with love. All we have to do is sit with the emotion. This means being angry and not trying to change the emotion. Be sad without trying to make it go away. Only try to find reasons for these emotions after they have subsided, but even then, finding reasons for emotional outbursts is not necessary. When we allow emotions, we love emotions just as when we allow people to be, we love them.

This definition of love sounds quite simple, but it isn’t easy. Built into our psyche is an ego that loves to resist. It survives through resistance. By judging, we receive an unnoticed benefit. It’s a slight to our ego. If you don’t believe me, ask yourself why we watch reality shows. Our ego resists change and vulnerability, yet paradoxically wants to work in the shadows. It resists being seen by us. This is why judgment is so easy. We aren’t always cognizant of what we are resisting. As long as we defend our opinions on how things should be, love won’t have an opportunity to show itself within the situation.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that love is something special that we only give to the “right” people. With this belief, we infer that love entails conditions, and we can only love when those conditions are met. Love only comes when we are attracted enough, understand enough, or believe someone else is worthy enough. This isn’t love.

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