Love

From the archives, originally written 5.18.2017

We are a people obsessed with love. Our movies, stories, and lives are focused on the pursuit of love. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed; movies seldom take us past the happy ending. Through much commotion, tears, fun, and alcohol the movies always depict the happy couple making it to the wedding day. No one shows you what happens next. What do we know what about the day after? That’s when the work of staying in love begins.

I want to talk to you about falling and staying in love with life. I want to tell you why you’ll probably marry the wrong person. And even if you do marry the right person, sometimes even they’ll be wrong for you on the rightest of days. When it comes to love, we’ve been lied to, hoodwinked, and deceived. After meeting with countless couples on their second or third go around and listening to their stories, I’m realizing that love has nothing do with your expectations. Love, to paraphrase Sartre, isn’t about other people. Love is about you, what you hold dear and how those values, if nurtured, will find a place to call home.

As you prepare to move into the world, you’re getting ready to marry life. Graduation is a marriage ceremony for life. You don’t want to marry the wrong kind of life; just like you don’t want to marry the wrong spouse. It’s a difficult thing to do. Life is full of choices, some exciting and stupid. Others are sensible and dull. Some are, like the porridge in Goldilocks and the three bears, just right. A bewildering array of possibilities leaves you with the idea, “I need to try everything. I don’t want to miss a thing.” You are not an Aerosmith song. There is a huge difference between experiencing life’s richness and fullness and experimenting with illegal drugs, binge drinking, and cheap sex because, “you want to speak from first-hand knowledge when you warn your kids not do to it.” You can suck the marrow out of life without sucking at life.

If no one has told you that, I’m telling you now. You don’t want your first life marriage to fail. Your marriage to the first life you fall in love with might fail because to the world, you seem normal. You’re not normal. We’re all crazy. Everyone carries latent mental illness. You’d be better off as you move into this new phase of your life if you stopped pretending to be normal. Introduce yourself with this statement, “I’m crazy like this. How are you crazy?” Honesty, acknowledging that you’re crazy, life is crazy, and whoever you marry is crazy, will save your love and your life. If you can reveal your flaws and embrace them, those fights you have with life will keep you from calling it quits when home is far away and love seems distant. Marriages end because people took a gamble on love. Your life marriage after you graduate, doesn’t have to be a gamble. You can get to know who you love by being more honest and open about who you are and what you believe. You don’t have to marry the wrong life or the wrong person.

What do you believe? Has anyone ever asked you that before? What do you feel strongly about? Is there some idea you value above all others? Discover what you value and let that overwhelming instinct guide you toward others. Your values form the foundation of love. Joy leads to love. Gratitude leads to love. If you are grateful, you will love.

Recklessness is the bastard stepchild of ingratitude. Unrealistic expectations in a relationship are the forgotten orphans of misery. Your ability to be grateful and joyful will determine your ability to love others. If you can’t honestly enjoy the life you’ve been given, how do you expect others do share it with you?

We’ve believed in expectations more than ourselves.

Expectations are not values. Wanting a good job is not the same as being grateful for the food on your plate.

Loving someone forever isn’t the same as how you spend most Friday nights.

Be of good cheer! Your whole lives are ahead you. My hope for you is that you will be drawn inward so that you may look outward. Break the cycles, may the mistakes you make be your own, not attempts to recreate the destructive patterns of the past. Find love, gratitude, and joy then act on them.

Look around you! The people who surround you in those moments will surely complicate any of your expectations of you thought your life might be.

I am a Christian, a realist, a believer in love, joy, gratitude, and good old fashion ancient Roman Cynic.

Whatever life you marry after graduation, may I tell you what can help you through those lean days (beside Ramen noodles)?

Cynicism is a means of looking past the superfluous influence our culture places on expectations related happiness and finding love.

A cynic will never believe that they’ll never be happy until they meet the right person.

A cynic knows that the life you marry is a life you achieve and build.

A cynic knows that rapport is not a precondition in any relationship. Compatibility comes with love.

Love and gratitude are values you can demand of yourself.

Richard, me and the kids a few years ago. <3