“A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, eastern or western… divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.” – Shams Tabrizi

Affection is beyond magnetizing. That astonishing jolt that rushes through your entire body reaching every nerve ending. We live for these bewildering moments. Love is so captivating, constantly drowning us under the waves of tenderness and intimacy. We dry ourselves from the endearment baptism, feeling capable of anything. We will find ourselves diving back into this ocean over and over again, and there is nothing wrong with that. Love isn’t needed to live, but don’t deny that we live for love. But often I have noticed many people sitting on shore from this sea.

I’m not talking about the sappy love story that you see in theaters. Real raw love. The love you feel for all the important people who surround you. That feeling that flutters the entire room and overflows every single body occupying the capacity. The endless love you feel for your siblings, even if they ate your leftovers and stole your clothing. The indescribable love you feel for a lover when you wake up next to them and they are in their most pure form possible and you can’t think of anything but to lay there forever. You know the love where you can just sit there in silence, and everything is perfectly still, and forever they are perfect to you.

I am a hopeless romantic, and I have to admit I live for these types of moments. But there is something that I have noticed. I’m not sure if it’s the generation I come from or the fact that I’m growing older and making more observations. But often people are pushing love to the bottom of their needs. Now I don’t mean that you shouldn’t put yourself, your education, and whatever else first. It’s just almost as if they don’t want it to exist at all, though. I’m not saying these people don’t want a romantic relationship either. I have just noticed they don’t want to feel at all.

So many people are using and abusing substitutes to avoid feelings. Love is one of the best feelings in my opinion. You can find love in unlimited things, and I don’t want to live a life where I am constantly pushing it away. I don’t want to live a life where I don’t get butterflies in my entire body when one of my friends is ecstatic about something pointless, but they are so happy you can’t help but adore them even more than is already possible. I don’t want to live a life where I don’t feel in love with my surroundings as I’m driving on a back road listening to my favorite music.

Love is love. We should accept love as it comes and goes. Understanding its peculiar powers, and letting it take is natural routes. We need to let our hearts fill with fire and let ourselves baptize in these incredible waters, and not be afraid of how it might make us feel. Feelings are cool. So let’s be cool and feel the love together. I mean we are beyond fortunate to even feel how we want to. What do you love most?