Why You May Never Find Love

Heartbreak, according to Brianna Wiest, is when somebody fails to fit into the specific notion we created of them. Suddenly, we are heartbroken because we expected that someone would behave in a certain way, and they did not. As long as we allow our expectations of fulfillment to lie with a fellow human being, we set up ourselves for heartbreak. Making us happy is not the reason people exist. These people have their own goals and lives to live, and it is a little unfair to try to force someone to be somebody else. Fulfillment, especially in the area of romance, does not work they way we think it does, and want it to. Fulfillment comes by being able to be responsible for something, in this case, the well-being of someone. Unconditional love on our part is therefore our ability to love someone unconditionally, even if they don’t love us unconditionally. That is not something many people are willing to do, and it could explain why love has eluded many of us, including myself. When we only love someone because of what they can do for us, what about the days when they will be unable to do these things. Take beauty of instance, nothing will remain of that shapely body in a few years. So when her face is wrinkled, and most of her teeth have fallen out, will you still love her? Love goes beyond a woman’s face or body. It’s a good thing to love a pretty woman, but that’s not all there is to love.

Love usually asks so much of us than we are ever ready or willing to give. What happened with all your other crushes? Why did you suddenly lose interest in all those boys you thought you loved? It’s hard to say, right? So what makes you think that you won’t lose interest in your current crush as well? The advice being advanced in the world, is that whenever we think we like someone, we should tell them. I don’t think that is ever the right thing to do. You like her, so what! You want her to be your girlfriend? Why? He is the right man for you? How did you know? Does your mentor agree?

Commitment is the reality of love that we are never willing to accept. Love is only beautiful when those in love are willing to commit to one another, and mostly commitment is independent of the other person. When we are truly in love, we don’t commit to someone because they have committed to us. Every successful love story or relationship has been so because of commitment. Love is a trade-off we are making; we are essentially saying that we are willing to focus on someone else for the season they are in in our lives. Most of us think that it will be beautiful for that person to focus on us as well. What if they won’t?

The Bible says that those who regard the wind will not sow. Love is a risk we take gladly. Aware that in the end, we risk being hurt, but choose to love anyway. If we truly love someone, we take that risk, because we know that it’s in loving them that our lives will make sense, not in them loving us.

Why has finding love been so disappointing? First Draft

Maybe life is depressing because we insist on loving people who don't love us back, who care so little. What of those who have always loved us, even when it was not convenient for them? Most of us are looking for love in the wrong places, from the wrong people. Now that I think about it, it's clear that when it matters most, it's family that will be on our side, not a crush we have been pining after. Sometimes, being a little critical only makes me more cynical when it comes to romance, which isn't a good thing, clearly. And just like most things, there's usually a story behind it, mostly a broken heart. Why don't the people we love love us back?

What is heartbreak according to Brianna Wiest [[101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think]]

The deceitfulness of our hearts, and the deceitfulness of sin by John Owen [[Indwelling Sin by John Owen]]

Why do we even have crushes, does love lie in our power? [[I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris]]

 Love is in the long term, and so much may be required of us than we may ever be willing to give. What happened with other crushes? Why did you stop loving them? Are you sure you love her? Why do you think you would want to spend the rest of your life with her?

Is there someone better than you that she would be better of having, would you give her up? Are you worthy of her?

So what will we choose? When it counts, we choose mind over heart, reason over romance.

He who regards the wind will not sow...

Sometimes we need to take the risk, if a captain wanted his ship to be safe, he would keep it at the docks, but that is not where ships were build to be.

Sometimes despite the hurt we could ever bear, we choose to love. Because when we choose love, we choose vulnerability, we choose to be hurt, to be disappointed. Is it worth it though? That's where perspective from other people come in, people need to see sense on your behalf during the times when you can only see love and nothing else.

The heart know its own sorrows, and no one can share in its joy. [[Proverbs]]

The Sins of Omission

Most people are sinners not because of what they have done, but because of what they have not done. The wretchedness of our lives could in some sense be attributed to our inaction during those critical moments of our lives when we needed to do something but instead chose to do nothing. It’s quite clear that it is not always something we do that gets us into trouble, but something we do not do, that we should’ve done. It’s been said that in our old age, we will regret not what we did, but what we did not do. To do nothing is a much greater risk, and I have had someone put it, though a little bit paradoxically, that it takes lots of courage to be a coward. It certainly does. It takes a lot of courage to do nothing, it’s the harder option. What were we supposed to do. Have we restrained our hands from helping, and have we shut our mouths from speaking.

By keenly avoiding to face some of the pertinent issues of our lives, we have allowed things to get messier, terrible and out of control. Our contribution could have kept things from escalating but we opted for silence. To date, we haven’t apologized when we should have ages ago. We haven’t shown up for the people we claimed we loved. We have failed to do our best as we promised. We haven’t shown kindness and compassion to those who needed it.

As it is, we always miss 100% of the shots we do not take. He who knows what he ought to do, but does not, to him it is sin, so the Scriptures say, he can be sure that his sin will find him out.

In Numbers 32, Reuben and Gad choose not to go to battle, opting instead to live by their flocks and take care of their children. Moses asks, “shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?” He warns them, “If you do not go forth to the battles of the Lord, and contend for the Lord God, and for his people, ye do sin against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.

In his book Stillness is the Key, Ryan Holiday recounts the words of Nassim Taleb, that if you see fraud, but do not say fraud you are a fraud. There’s the choice about standing back, about not getting our hands dirty, about not getting ourselves involved in other people’s business, but that’s the harder and costlier choice. When we do the silent treatment in a relationship, whether it is with a partner, a friend, a roommate, a parent, a neighbor, when we keep silent when we should speak we act unjustly, and our sin will find us out. When we can help but we do not help, we are the world’s greatest cowards; we are frauds. Ryan goes on to says, the health of our spiritual ideals depend on what we do with our bodies in the moments of truth. The Priest and the Levite who passed by the injured man could have done something, they didn’t; they looked away, they walked away. When someone needed you, did you look away? He who is blessed with the world’s goods, and yet shuts himself up from helping one who is in need, does he not sin? Jesus says: do not refuse him who asks for your help. If you act, will it change anything? If yes, then act. When men take up arms to go to war, do not sit back and rest. Rise with them, go and fight with them. This could bring the just concluded protests in the medical field to mind, but it is more than just showing up with the placard. It is not about yelling, it is saying something when it truly matters.

The choice about living like a coward or dying a hero is ours to make, when we do the former, we can be sure our sin will find us out. Things may unspool themselves alright, the storm may calm without us not having acted, but still, we can be sure that our sin will find us out. The honey in the hive might be abundant, but it won’t be what it would have been had all the bees brought in their share of the nectar. What should you be adding to your team? Are you holding back when their goodwill depends on you? Is it your habit not to meet for fellowship? Do you make your contribution of prayers to the common stalk? What have you not done? Have you apologized? Have you clarified your intentions? Notice a need in the world, then do something about it. If you do not know how to help, stand up and ask, “excuse me, how can I help?”

Don’t be a coward.