Maybe We’re Unhappy Because We’re Not Loving the Right Way

Are you closing your heart to what can give you happiness today?

“For myself, I find I become less cynical rather than more — remembering my own sins and follies; and realize that men’s hearts are not often as bad as their acts, and very seldom as bad as their words.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

Remember when you were happiest?

If we can honestly answer the question as to when we felt happiest, it may very well be that time when our love was brimming to the full. That time when you first fell in love, or that time when you first gazed at your newborn child. Perhaps that’s the reason why when asked for the meaning of life, we’d often refer to our relationships.

It is love and our relationships that make us truly happy. Not possessions, not popularity, not even power.

This is why whenever we’re most down, it is often

linked also to the state of our relationships — our family, our co-workers, our schoolmates, our neighbors, and yes, even and especially our enemies.

When love turns into hatred

Why did I give a particular mention to our enemies? Because our relationship with them is what often steals our happiness, and because quite often, in the course of our lives, we experience times when our closest relationships turn into the very opposite path, and our loved ones and neighbors become the very enemies we detest.

If you can learn to love your enemies, it would be far easier for you to love your friends. You will continue to love them even when they become your enemies.

What turns our love into hate in the first place?

Perhaps it’s betrayal; perhaps it’s that one unforgettable moment of offense you could no longer forget.

Sometimes it takes but a single moment to lose all your love for someone. For others, it takes many days of escalating tension and animosity.

Whatever it may be, your love fades away and so does your happiness.

The pain of loving

This is the double-edged sword of love, that of joy and sorrow, of bliss and of pain.

While love makes us happy, it is also through love that we find grief. Grief for the unfaithfulness of the ones we have loved. Grief for the emptiness left after love fades away.

We cannot exempt ourselves from pain for as long as we strive to live meaningful lives. We can, however, choose a lighter burden — the burden of love.

Why do I say lighter? Because when we choose not to love, our burdens grow much more.

When we choose to hate, we poison our hearts with anger. We fill our days with thoughts of resentment and revenge. We imprison ourselves to the past — to that moment when we have been hurt.

Who do you think is much happier? The one who hates? Or the one who loves and forgives?

This is not to say that we must remain in abusive and dangerous relationships. Yet even then, we can choose to love by forgiving and letting go.

When love is shallow

Quite often, we do not love enough to overcome our miseries. We think we have already loved when we have failed to take the time and effort needed to let our love grow deeper and stronger.

A shallow kind of love is hurt more often because it fades with the slightest irritations and inconveniences. It is jealous and proud. It is easily angered. It pities itself and sees only the other person’s offenses.

This love has not been allowed to blossom to its fullness because we have been more occupied with loving ourselves.

When love grows deeper

A deeper kind of love is not that kind of love that notices only what is wrong. It is that kind that always appreciates what is positive about the other person.

A deep kind of love puts others in their best light. It sees more than one’s weaknesses and current offenses. It is quick to forget what is wrong but it strives to always remember what is good.

Can you start to see now how only those who truly love are happy?

The happiness of someone who loves deeply is the kind of happiness that is grateful for every good and finds compassion for all that is lacking. It sympathizes with the sufferings of others and so grows in understanding instead of resentment.

Final words

We love others right when we love people as fellow human beings who struggle and who fall, who may not always get it right, but who have the capacity to intend what is good.

We love others right when we take time to love them and provide a home for them in our hearts each day, remembering their uniqueness and dignity, their laughter and their tears.

If we love them this way, we allow love to grow deep within us and not take notice only of people whenever they do us wrong.

Yes, if you want to be happy, you must love. But love deeply. Love fully. Love with a forgiving and faithful heart.

Love is holding on to the incomparable beauty and goodness that you have found. It is clinging to every bit of it that remains, to the tiniest speck of its radiance which alone can warm your heart.