THE PROBLEM:

What exactly is the problem with love?

It’s one of the main forces that drive us as we move through life. Yet somehow we spend most of our adult lives trying to figure out how to love and be loved.

And yes, both are necessary.

We grow up with different ideas constantly thrown at us about what love should be. We see it on our television and movies, we hear about it in our music, we read about in our literature… I think it’s safe to say that humans have been obsessed with the subject since the beginning of time.

Obsessed, but also oblivious at times.

We have even gone as far as to figure out formulas, tests, and charts that might get us closer to cracking the code, but things fail regardless of how “compatible” people might initially be. Now, to top it all off, we have added social media and constant unrealistic comparisons/expectations to the non-existent equation that we have come to call “love.”

We have a stream of constant “picture perfect” data fed to us from all social media platforms and most of our social interactions as well. People try to put their best foot forward when in public and because everyone else is doing it too, no one really thinks that people have arguments or struggles like they do. We feel alone when we have disagreements and therefore our fuses are shorter, we blow up in ways that make matters worse, and we cease to see the point in continuing to choose them.

Or we can do the opposite (and possibly the most damaging) by actually disregarding the constant fights and lack of trust/respect because we romanticise the momentary good that we experience. We live through the experiences that we post on social media or when we are out in public and fail to acknowledge the wounds that never even begin to get a chance to heal prior to the next damaging outburst.

We stay in damaging relationships for far too long because we are afraid to be alone… only to realize that the longer we stay, the harder it also becomes to heal from the trauma that is caused. We get in relationships that will distract us from the healing process… we take them on as projects, but then we realize that we are now the one causing the trauma to someone else due to the pain that we still experience.

It’s a vicious cycle of pull and push, and we want what we cant have.

When we have something good, we don’t want it because we find something to miss… we can always find something more to want. When we have something bad, we just can’t seem to give up because we have to convince them of our worth before we go (and rarely will you).

We base things on the superficial and on the temporary. We look with our eyes, but not with our hearts… and much less our minds.

So where do we go from here?… when it seems like all the odds are stacked up against us.

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