15 Things To Remember If You Worry You’ll Never Find Love
The idea that you have to earn it – that it's outside of you – is only keeping you from yourself.
1. You cannot control who gives you love. You can always control who you give love to.
2. Giving more love is almost always the solution to getting more love in return.
3. Either way, spending a life giving love with no expectation of getting it back is among the most noble pursuits there is.
4. Just because you feel something doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because you feel you’re meant to be with someone doesn’t mean you will be. Just because you feel you’re unlovable and unwanted and hopeless doesn’t mean you actually are. Don’t always trust your feelings, especially not blindly.
5. Not everyone can love you in a way you understand. It doesn’t mean you’re less loved, it means that some people express it in ways that haven’t occurred to you yet.
6. You are more disliked than you realize. You are more loved than you know. This is true of everyone, and the amount that you’re loved always outweighs how much you’re disliked, because love is infinitely more powerful, even if it’s just coming from one person.
7. You cannot measure how loved you are by how many people are pretending to like you.
8. Other people showing you love is only half the battle. Mostly, it’s about whether or not you’re open to receiving it, or even recognizing it in the first place.
9. Romantic love is not the only love that exists. It’s not the end-all-be-all of being alive, despite what people tell you. There are so many other types of love that are profound to experience, chief among them true love for yourself.
10. Wanting “love” is almost always a disguise for wanting approval. Learn to validate yourself, because people who don’t learn to do that spend their lives bending and erasing parts of themselves to get a head nod from the very people who are most reluctant to give it.
11. Being whole doesn’t mean being adored by others. It means living out the parts of you that bring you so much joy, you don’t even have time to wonder whether or not other people like it.
12. If you thought about it honestly, you’d be able to name at least one or two people who you know love you, even if it’s just a pet or your grandma. One or two is more than enough.
13. You do not need to be a certain way to be lovable. If you did a mental scan of everyone you know who is happily coupled or adored by friends, you will find that their similar traits have to do with how they treat others, not how attractive or successful or wealthy they are.
14. Your life is not over. There are people you haven’t met who will play huge, plot-twisting roles in your story. There are trips you haven’t taken, friends you don’t yet know, ideas you haven’t considered, places you haven’t seen, things you haven’t tried, epiphanies that haven’t come to you.
15. You do not need to be loved. You are love. The idea that you have to earn it – that it’s outside of you – is only keeping you from yourself. 