READER BEWARE: If you do not believe worthwhile dreams are achievable, and disappointments are hurdles to clear, not stop signs on the boulevard of dreams, you might want to stop reading! 😊

For those of us who are still here, imagine this!
Next week, you and a friend, Alex, agree to meet at your favorite restaurant for dinner. Once seated, Alex mentions that they received a gift for a trip to Madrid, Spain. And nonchalantly, they say they will not redeem it. Curious, you ask them why, and they respond, “Spain is not for me.”
Their response astonishes you! You love Spain and thoroughly enjoyed your visit to Madrid and Barcelona a few years ago. So, you inquire further!

How do you know it is “not for you”?

Without skipping a beat, Alex recounts the dreadful experiences of two friends who visited Madrid a year ago. They said the streets were dirty, the hotel was subpar, and to top it off, they got a stomach bug after eating at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.
Sounds terrible! Curious, you ask Alex if they know anyone else who went to Spain. Quickly, Alex responds with stories of several other close friends and coworkers who had a tremendous experience there and found the Prado Museum and Plaza Mayor enchanting.

Upon hearing this, you are bewildered that Alex is willing to turn down the gift based on a few negative accounts. And forego the possibility that it could be their ticket to realizing a dream they never dared to imagine. Essentially, this is what shutting the door in our own face looks like!

Navigating the heart.

Unfortunately, we sometimes navigate matters of the heart, especially love, by shutting the door in our face. Because love demands vulnerability: it requires that we open ourselves up simultaneously to the possibility of pain and joy.

For this reason, after being hurt and watching others get hurt, we may conclude that we are better off standing on the riverbank of life and barely dipping a toe into the river. Such thinking leads to relationships where the physical body is present, but the heart is absent. To minimize our chances of getting hurt, we do avoid committing. And the relationship is short-lived. Because to secure love, we must be open to the possibility of pain.

Love is an all-in endeavor. In the earnest pursuit of pure love, a wounded heart is a badge of honor, not an emblem of disgrace. It signifies that we gave our all. Therefore, while we may experience hurt, as we withheld nothing of significance, there is no room for regret.

Love and fear

Yet still, philophobia, or the fear of falling in love, is a predominant reason why many flee from love like the bubonic plague. Fearing disappointment, we take to our heels. And as we flee, we conclude that love is not for us, not that we did not welcome it.
But consider this: How can a swimmer say the Olympic gold medal was not for them if they never trained and tried out for the national team? In the same vein, how can one affirmatively state that love is not for them without learning how to give and receive love and then commit to another?

When we commit to anything, we incur risk and exposure to pain. However, missing the opportunity to love another earnestly and form a lifetime partnership is more tragic: It bemoans the tone of a life that was not well lived. And to quote the esteemed poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.

A final note.

A broken heart and shattered dreams may lead us to conclude that we can substitute romantic love with friendships. But know that while romantic love is not for all, it is not randomly set aside for some and deliberately kept away from others. Instead, it is a choice: To get love, we must give and receive it and commit to another.
So, next time you think love is not for you, I hope you ask yourself where the message came from.

I pledge my life to love as I see it through the pure and divine lens of kindness, patience, humility, and grace.

Fellow dreamers, poets, and philosophers, keep dreaming and sharing!

For you and to you,
Aké

Image credit: Pexels_Mariana Montrazi