Nothing.
It’s not as though there was a time when I’d thought that reply would be different. Truth is, there was a time when I wouldn’t have even thought to ask myself the question. It doesn’t really seem like something a person would consciously ask themselves. Or, at least, it didn’t for me. But, maybe I wasn’t that conscious back then?
I know I didn’t give up anything for Love. I know that Love didn’t ask me to give up anything. All of it was a choice. The most conscious choice I’ve ever made, I’d say. And, for me, there was no way to believe that I’d have to give up anything for it. I’d realized that whatever it was to think that you’d have to give up, you’re actually really carrying. And ‘carrying’, gets heavy.
A lot of life, whether we are aware of it or not, is trying to find who we are. What we aspire to be, the things we buy, the people we befriend, relationships we cultivate; some of the aforementioned being more fleeting than others. Our search becomes a path of competing alternatives, or so that is the misdirection. When we feel that we give up something for something else, significance becomes attached to that direction which we take. And, intuitively, it makes sense. When something appears to outweigh something else, not only is there an invested conviction in the choice we made, but also potential regret in the choice we didn’t make.
This is not Love. With Love, there is no loss of identity or risk of retribution. There is no fear of missing out or threat to personal self. Yes, Love is a choice. Through and through. But, Love isn’t a choice that asks you to trade anything for it.
None of this is an attempt to wordsmith my way around what Love means to me and how I didn’t “have” to give up anything by using terms like ‘choice’ and suggesting anything but Love is really a burden in disguise. This is my life experience and revelation. And, evolution. The Heart is the Heart. No different in anyone. Its capacity for Love is nothing less than infinite and it’s only the mind that attempts to convince otherwise.
When you integrate Love for yourself, Love for your well being, Love for others and Love from others, into your matrix of competing alternatives, you’ll realize that there is no competition and there are no alternatives. There’s no reason for anything else, something that became and is very apparent to me. And, it’s that something that carries me, I do not carry it.
Love changed my life. Love IS changing my life. And, it’s changing life around me. Not because of me, but because of it.
Be Love.
