Love is Not the Destination, It is the Journey

When I feel love I am safe, warm, beautiful, powerful, and peaceful. Love is the place where I am my brightest self. My thoughts are clear and confident. No harm can come to me. The rhythm of life is easy. “All is well in my world”, as Louise Hay would say. Each and every one of us has experienced love, if only for a moment. We can also recognize love easily when we observe a baby giggling or a child with a puppy. Love is free, sweet and darn powerful. If love is so very easy and instantaneous, where is it most of the time? The newspapers never speak of love. The news media barely broadcasts love stories except for maybe Valentine’s Day. If I sang you a love song, you would probably be embarrassed and shhhh me. And yet: * We move for lovern* We die for lovern* We cry for lovern* We admire for lovern* We long for lovern* We fight for love I had lunch with a new gentlemen friend who told me the loveliest story about a couple named Peter and Mary. Actually, they are known in their community as Saint Peter and Saint Mary because of their love for each other. They have been married for 70+ years and have seven children. They are deeply in love with each other and anyone who sees them together immediately recognizes the power of their love. My new friend, Michael, told me that he has never experienced a love like Peter and Mary’s and, at this stage in his life, doesn’t want to settle for less than that kind of powerful love. My comment to Michael was that Peter and Mary loved each other “anyway.” Meaning that, even though neither of them are perfect and their 70+ years of marriage haven’t been perfect, they love each other in spite of any flaws or foibles. Their commitment is to the power of love. Michael says Peter and Mary are lucky. I think they are brilliant to have recognized the power of their love and then committed to being in love “anyway.” In my note to you, I talked about my time on the couch in front of the fire with my puppy and how I mentally reviewed the research I’ve done over the last six weeks about the idea of love as a success philosophy and the ultimate tool for creating what you want. If you agree that love is powerful and that loving or being loved creates safety, then isn’t it fair to say that when you are your most successful you are in the company of love? In addition, love has come to all of us in some form or another and it feels good…really good, even if only for that moment. Love is something that is impossible to define and equally impossible to live without. You know when you don’t love. You know when you are not loved. You know when love is missing. You know when love is present. Doesn’t it seem strange that we do not spend more time in love, with love, experiencing love, seeking love, providing love, or feeling love? In my experience the word “love” isn’t welcome in our vocabulary as business people. I’ve never heard a CEO say: “Well let’s just love that prospect with all we have and see where it takes us.” or “Why don’t we try lovingly telling our new Executive VP so he/she knows thatrnwe are confident in their ability to get the job done.” Do you remember your first love? The emotion of it and the depth of it and the wonder of it? Of course you do. Weren’t you the most powerful creature on earth? I was. His name was James Henderson in the fourth grade and he wore a leather jacket. When I would think of him during class, I would imagine myself as smart and funny and terribly interesting so he would notice me. I was the embodiment of the total package of a powerful human. Yes I was! Today I struggle to see love anywhere. Our world. Economy. Families. Employment or lack thereof. Housing. Investments. Traffic. Homelessness. What would love do in these situations? I keep hearing the song “All We Need Is Love.” I think what if that is true and we all just missed it. So maybe I am pathetically naïve. However, what if love is all we need?