The Self Improvement Blog | Self Esteem | Self Confidence

I got an email this morning from someone I did not know, and the title of it was “I Love you.”

I opened it first. (Well, wouldn’t you?)

It’s about love. More precisely, it’s about how to make people love you. You may be surprised at the advice. Try it, though before you move on or reject it. Watch it here.

We all want love. In fact, we are longing for love. It’s different for each of us and very hard to define. The best Webster can do is say that it’s “an intense feeling of deep affection.” However you define it,  we want it. We want to say “I love you” and mean it.  And we want to hear those words as well.

We search for love

If you search for books on love on Amazon.com you will get 90,000 results. If you search for “love” on Google you will get 9,360,000,000 results. (No, I did not check each one out. Whew!) A search will yield 986,000,000 blogs about love,  this blog.  You can see lists of the top 100 love songs. Movies and videos about love predominate the media. Even in some of the meanest, most violent movies, there is often a love story playing as a sub-plot. We get some satisfaction in seeing someone else find love, even if it’s on screen because it tells us there is some hope for us to find love, too.

We sign up on dating sites hoping to find “the perfect match.” Sometimes it works, but often it does not. And we keep searching. We are told we can meet someone special in the grocery store pr even the car dealership (if you want a  wealthy mate go where they sell expensive cars, is the idea). Many go to bars (not always a good place to meet someone you want to spend a lifetime with). Some look around in church, sports events, concerts and more. Every place can be a “hunting ground” for someone to love and return the love. There are few who say they don’t need love and even fewer who mean it.

We need love

The Dalai Lama says this about love:

Ultimately, the reason why love and compassion bring us the greatest happiness is simply that our nature cherishes them above all else. The need for love lies at the very foundation of human existence. It results from the profound interdependence we all share with one another. However capable and skillful an individual may be, left alone he or she will not survive. However vigorous and independent one may feel during the most prosperous periods of life, when one is sick or very young or very old, one must depend on the support of others.

We are “hard-wired” for love. Each of us needs love physiologically, emotionally, and mentally. We need to be touched. told, and made love to. And we also need to be able to give love and have it received. Fortunately, there is more than one kind of love, even though we generally focus on romantic love. According to the ancient Greeks, there are seven types of love:

It is possible to experience each of them.  We can say “I love you” and mean it to a child, a parent, a best friend, our reflection in a mirror and, yes, to our beloved.

Take some time to reflect on what love means to you. How do you define it? What does it look like and feel like to you? Where have you found it in your own life? If you are still searching, where is the best place to start?

Then, watch the video. It is and it is not profound. On the first viewing, it’s fun and funny but it has a depth to it that you will appreciate when you “get it.”

Perhaps the starting place for love is called L-I-S-T-E-N!

And yes, I love you.

And, Jack, I love you most of all!