Thought Provoking Question: 8 of 25

This is a great question, and I don't know where to begin, so I'm just going to go for it.

I am trying these days to love with my whole heart. For me, that means acting out of love instead of fear in general, being more open and more vulnerable, and responding in love.

So, in a coffee shop, I act out of love when I scoot over to make space for another customer or offer a smile to a stranger. I try to be happy in traffic. I realize we are all fighting hard battles, and that my problems, in the grand scheme of things, are really so, so small, that if I can give a hand to others, I will do so in the midst of my own life. I pray for those I have not met when I feel called to do so. I smile when people are kind to one another and I witness it, I let myself feel that love passing through our communities.

With family, I try to love in honesty. I try to be authentic so that those who are closest to me and have done the most for me can actually know the person I am.

With friends, I've been trying so much more to reciprocate. I used to not initiate plans with friends for fear of rejection. Now, I embrace the idea of rejection as sometimes inevitable, not all that personal, and something necessary if I also want to experience the joy and comfort of acceptance. Here I also try to be genuine; I want my friends to know I see them as equals and peers who I can relate to when there is something they find funny, sad, scary or nuts.

I try not to mind about the little things, to give second chances, and to realize that the love I share in relationships is ultimately the love given so freely to me by a universal and infinite God who never runs out of patience with me. I try to love as God loves me and as I would like to be loved at my worst, not just my best.

I also try to love myself. I believe that self-respect and love is fundamental to being able to love others wholeheartedly. So I try to be gentle with myself and pass that one to the world around me.

I think that by working to cultivate attitudes and behaviors of love in little ways all the time, I am most likely to give back the abundance of love I've received by those I'm closest to and strangers who are friends I've yet to meet alike.