If you search the phrase "quotes about love", over 72 million results can be found.

72 million.

So why, despite all these wise sayings and pieces of advice, do we still find ourselves as a whole, forgetting what it is to love?

Because love is a choice. Sure, it can be easy to love someone, or something. But it has been said many times over and over that you have to choose to keep loving. You have to make the conscious effort to love.

You have to look at the person next to you, across from you, miles away on your phone screen and say to yourself "They are not perfect. But I choose to love them anyway.

Right now we are in the midst of what could be a devastating divide in our country. We have people taking sides of either Republican or Democrat, arguing over bodies and rights and laws and education and whatever else they see potential in an argument for but it has got to stop.

I don't want to see one person I am friends with call the other an ignorant pig. I don't want to see one person call another person a sensitive snowflake.

I want to see people choosing love. I want people to say "Hey, maybe I don't respect your opinions, but I choose to love you. Maybe I don't want to be your friend, but I choose to love you."

Here's the thing.. carrying around hate in your heart begins to get so heavy. Your heart was made to love! (okay, technically it was made to pump blood through your body but you know what I'm getting at.) So WHY would you continually deny it to do the thing it was made to do? Wouldn't it be easier to just let it do its job??

I am not saying that I love everybody all the time. There are days I really struggle. How do I love someone who hurt me? How do I love someone who killed another person? How do I choose to love somebody who is oppressing other people? How do I choose to love a terrorist?

I choose to love because I am loved.

The choice of love is not condoning actions. It does not make everything okay magically. The choice of love is refusing to put ice in your heart. The choice of love is an effort to repair the damages you can't see. The choice of love is letting somebody know that they are more than the words that have left their mouths or the actions they have taken in the past.

Taking to somebody's Facebook post to tell them they are a racist because they vote for Trump doesn't seem like love to me.

Taking to somebody's Facebook post to tell them they are a murderer because they're pro-choice doesn't seem like love to me.

These things aren't even respect or kindness.

It's simple really, it just goes back to treating others how you want to be treated. At the end of the day, I don't want somebody to remember me because I called them names over a political discussion. I want them to see my name and remember that we could express differences, in love. I want them to remember that we could talk without even bringing up differences. I want them to remember that despite everything they felt bad, dirty, unworthy for- they felt loved through our interactions.

So, maybe that makes me a little ignorant. Maybe it makes me a little sensitive. But I am SO over trying to take sides and make up my mind about things. I just wanna love.

And there's 72 million sources I could give you about why its the best choice for me.