Love is Just a Word...

I was watching a short video of Marc Mero (let me premise this by saying I had no idea who he was when I watched this video) talking to a group of mid teens about how the common belief is that the people we associate with, define the person we are and whom we become.   But what really made me stand up and listen to the rest of his video was his next sentence..... (I'm paraphrasing here).... "but that isn't true, it is the choices make when faced with decisions that make us the person we become."

And I got to thinking how abundantly clear and concise this message was.  Of course, it isn't something that I haven't heard before and it isn't something that I am sure I have proven myself over time, so what was it about this video that made me stop and actually listen to what the speaker had to say?  Was it his story, was it his stage presence, was it his voice, was it his surgically altered (well it looks it to me) face, was it this mountain of a man wearing jeans and a t-shirt pacing back and forth across the stage.  No, it was the look on the faces of his audience that captured my attention.

Then I listened, not just with my ears, but with my eyes as well, I listened to the reactions of the students when he reached the punchline of his story, what they heard, how they cried, how they then reacted to each other by reaching out to their friend sitting next to them, or how they quickly glanced around the room to find the student next to them also silently crying.  It was a student shaking his head at the tragedy of the speaker's story and almost the look of "I will never do that" that came over his face.  It was the young girl who drew in a deep breath when she realized the truth about the words that she was hearing.  It was the expressions of realization that made me watch the video again to make sure I wasn't seeing things and to listen again with my ears as well this time, to the story I was being told.

I absolutely believe that when a student is ready to learn a lesson, it's teacher will appear.  We never know in what form, or how the lesson will be taught or how long it will take to learn, but learn it we do.  Even though many times I have heard and even had this discussion about life's choices and how they define us..., I never really stopped to think about it in an everyday kind of way.  Every day I make choices from numerous stimuli but never stop to consider. "what happens if..."  Some of these decisions are made instinctively, and majority of the time none of the decisions I make are life altering or personally defining.  I just make decisions and then go on with my life, negating to reflect on the decisions I have made throughout the day and how they have changed or affected change in me as a person.

At the end of his video, Marc Mero made the following statement "Love, is just a word until somebody comes along and gives it meaning."

This was a very poignant statement to me, and I found myself nodding my acceptance of what he was saying to ring true to me.  Love. The amount of things we can do with it are just amazing to me.  We can accept it and give it, revel in it, dream of it, hug it, sing about it and read about it.  We can relish in it, we can ignore it, run from it, or run to it and we can hide from it or we can shout from the roof tops that we have found it.  We can live for it, we can die for it, we can even be a little bit shy of it. But we all need it.  Love can be good for us, or it can prove to be our downfall, but a ride it is on the way down.  It can make us strive for perfection or we can accept that it will never be perfect.  We can fight for it, or we can fight against it.  We can all give it, and we can all take it.  We can also use it as a filler word, like, I love french fries, or I love that song..... but like anything, there is a point at which time, love becomes a thing and not just a word.  Until you actually feel love, it somehow just isn't real and can't be trusted.

In order to feel love, we have to want it more than we don't.  We have make the choice to love, not hate.  We have to make the decision to accept love into our life, we have to find that little something to start our love off with, and then progress onto bigger things, more worthy things, like, ourselves for example.

I love, I love a lot of things, and believe my life is richer for doing so.  I know what it feels to be hopelessly in love and to love with an intelligent heart.  I know what it's like to love with abandon and innocence.  I know what it's like to trust with love and to have the trust of love broken, I know what it's like to be afraid of love, but more importantly I also now, know what it's like to embrace love.  I open my heart to every person I meet, sometimes it stays open and other times it shuts down immediately, instinctively.....

What I actually know about love could be summed up and wrapped in a little package with a bright red bow and labeled "Choice" Because it is true, until we choose to let love into our lives, there is no light, and we have nothing to compare it too.  Love may come in different forms, different shades or even different levels of feeling, but if you choose to let love in,  you will definitely give it meaning and you will be defiantly making the choice to live a life with love.

That's a damn fine choice as far as I am concerned,  Go on, give love a chance you deserve to give it meaning.

I no longer live in time, I live in moments of time that are filled with love.  Remember,  it's not what's in your pockets that makes you rich, it's what's in your heart.  I know mine is filled with love.