No Shortage of Opportunities to Love

Riding on the train, the man across the aisle leaned over and asked, "why are you so happy?" Why was i so happy? How could i explain it to this man in my halting french. I told him it was love. "Oh you must be in love with someone?" "No, not love of somebody or something, just love." He gave me a puzzled look and then had an Aha moment. He said,

"Are you careful with your heart? Do you keep it protected?"

"No, not at all" i replied.

I explained as carefully as i could love was not something to be protected or hoarded or hidden away. Love was something to be shared and given away. My teacher, don Miguel Ruiz, told me many years ago that what makes us feel so good feeling the love pour out of us. Only our simple minds put conditions and restrictions on love. Love knows no boundaries. And a few days later i awoke to this in an email from Miguel:

Be generous with your love. You are never going to be alone if you are
generous with your love. What makes you happy is love coming out of you,
and if you are generous with your love, everyone is going to love you.

The fear to love only comes from the mind that tells us its not safe or we are going to get hurt. But did you ever ask who hurts you...really? Not him or her or them. The "person" that hurts us is the little voice in our head that says we did something wrong, we shouldn't have loved. It puts conditions on love and what is supposed to look like, i.e. what you are supposed to get from loving, the bargaining aspect of love if you will. But if you listen closely to that voice what it is really saying you might hear something like this,

"thank god you loved, because now i can tell you that it didn't turn out right and furthermore i can make you miserable and in your misery you will listen to me even more carefully to avoid the pain that i will promise that you will avoid if you listen to me but i really won't deliver on because whenever you do something from love, which is your nature, so you are guaranteed to slip up from time to time and love, i will punish you for not listening to me and doing what is in your nature and that punishment will cause you to listen to me even more carefully so that you won't get hurt and the result is i'm very happy and you're not." Aie, aie , aie.

One of the reasons i like being here in Paris is because i allow myself to love as much as i possibly can. Life has been incredibly generous with me and i show my appreciation by loving without expectation. It seems ironic to me that the more you love without wanting or expecting anything in return the more love you receive. And my loving is not limited to people. I say i love you to the trees, to the snow, to my very sharp knife and even to the omnipresent doggie caca on the sidewalks---and i promise you there are no shortage of opportunities to love.