Love

If enjoyment is our metric of personal welfare, then love is our desire for others to enjoy. To love is to wish for the unconditional well-being of other people.

Loving someone can bring us great joy, but that’s not the aim. The nature of love is to wish for absolutely nothing in return–if it were merely a means to personal gain, it wouldn’t be love. Love is the only unconditional act, and all truly unconditional acts are love. 

But is just wishing for the well-being of others really love? How is that a metric of success?  

By “wishing” well-being, I don’t mean to stop once we feel affection for another. Sometimes, that’s all that is within our power, but most often, our wishes will carry us to action.

We can’t control others’ well-being, only our own actions. Love starts with the desire for others to be well, and we can choose to act on that desire. We can take steps to encourage the well-being of others, but must be wary of gauging success based on outcomes. Love is a process, not a result. It is fantastic when our actions make a positive difference–that’s our intention, after all–but it shouldn’t impact the value of our loving acts.

We may intrinsically value both our enjoyment and that of others, but we only have control over the former. In our effort to increase others’ enjoyment, we love. It’s all that’s within our control, and it’s only with what we can control that we can measure success.

Love is important, but how do we do it? What does it look like to act on our desire for others' well-being? 

Love is stepping outside of yourself, and thinking hard about others’ best interests. It is serving others even if against your own interests. Love is the whole-hearted effort to make the world a better place.

An enjoyable life is meaningful, but a loving life is profound. Live for your friends, family, neighbors, fellow humans and beings. Doing so may not only improve their lives, but your own.