There is an immense amount of freedom when we start to accept the fact that we are all human beings. Imperfect, flawed and short of everything. We are not sovereign or ultimate, not the greatest or the strongest. We fall and we fail. We are human.

And the greatest thing we can do for each other is to love each one wholly. That means with acceptance and liberated from all our personal expectations. That means looking at people knowing they cannot offer us the world and still be capable of embracing them. That means being aware of all their bad parts and still understand that it’s what fulfills them. That means seeing all the things we dislike about them and still have the strength to shower them with compassion. That means discarding all the things we want them to be, deleting all our personal expectations and just let them in, dirt and all, wholeheartedly.

That means not changing them. Not crafting them into something we want them to be. Not molding them to become who we expect them to be.

Because at the end of the day, what really hinders our connection with people is the fact that we always expect so much from them. We expect them to be on their A-Game, we expect them to give us all our requests, all our needs, we expect them to be the best “this” and “that.” We expect them to be someone they’re not.

So instead of us seeing the beauty in their rawness, we turn them into something they’re actually not. We lose the real person we were supposed to meet because we focus so much of our energy changing them. Not loving them.

We look at them and when they fail to suffice or pass our expectations, we will look at them like they are less.

But the thing is: they are enough. They are perfect, kind, and beautiful just the way they are. As cliché as it sounds, it’s the truth. Even if they don’t have that thriving career we expect them to have, or that brand new car, or that really big mansion, or that look and fashion sense we think is best suited for them. Even if they cannot please everybody, even if they make mistakes, even if their lives are more of failures than of triumphs. Even if they lose patience and cannot be kind to everyone, even if they cannot cross rivers for us or oceans for that matter: they are trying and sometimes that’s enough.

People are enough.

Our job is not to play God and start meddling with the lives of everyone we meet. Our job is to connect with them and the first step to connect with them is to wholeheartedly accept them, flaws and all.

Loving people isn’t actually complicated. What makes it complicated is when we start expecting so much from them that sometimes they lose the strength to cope up and live up to our expectations. For example, when we try to find a partner, we usually have a list of standards and expectations on who this person should be in our eyes, so instead of focusing on their capabilities, strengths and all the good things they can offer, what we do is focus on what they are lacking.

When in fact it’s fascinating to look at someone and just fall… no hesitations, no expectations.

Just fall in love freely.

Not looking if they are rich, good looking or successful enough. Just looking at their soul, assured that they are gentle to you, funny even though they’re corny, polite even when they say no, beautiful even when they have all these scars people can never understand. It’s astounding to just gaze directly at someone’s soul, ignoring all their physical attributes, all their shortcomings and mistakes. Just looking directly at who they are and embracing it with love and acceptance.

When we learn to do that we will make the grandest connections of our lives and we will find incredible freedom.