Love Someone – Is Good at Any Time

“But [love] is especially good if you feel stressed, worried, or turned upside down, including by big forces that seem beyond your control.

By “love” I mean a wide range, including compassion, support, friendliness, encouragement, appreciation, and cherishing. It can be expressed in simple or subtle ways, such as a call to a friend, more patience with a partner, saying what you liked about a co-worker’s idea, or seeing the being behind the eyes of a stranger passing on the sidewalk.

And if love is not expressed, it is still real and it matters. For example, when things happen at any scale that are or could be awful for others, from your daughter’s friends turning against her, to a turn for the worse in a country, to the planet overheating and species dying, it is natural to feel a sense of moral outrage on behalf of other beings. This is a kind of love, even if there is no place to put it. Or you might sense the weariness in the person sitting across from you in the subway and feel some compassion and goodwill. Perhaps you think about a friend with appreciation or smile to yourself at what a goofball he is.

No matter what others do, we can choose to love. Besides its benefits for others, love is also calming, centering, and strengthening for oneself.”

The above quotation is by Dr. Rick Hanson, psychologist, founder of the Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, founder of the Global Compassion Coalition, author, and more. I found this quotation in a pile of filing building up under my desk. Reading it unlocked a tightness of anger, frustration, and helplessness which has been building in the past year with the many humanitarian, planet, and political crises which we are living through at this time. To think of my moral outrage as a kind of “love” softens my anger. And to consider that just thinking about someone with a smile on my face and in my heart is a form of love, breaks into personal barriers. Love can be so much more. Love can be so simple.

And then upon the heels of this epiphany, I heard this song on the radio, on an NPR talk show. Wow. What a Wonderful World, sung by Louis Armstrong.

“What A Wonderful World”

I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

I see skies of blue
And clouds of white
The bright blessed day
The dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands
Saying, “How do you do?”
They’re really saying
“I love you”

I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more
Than I’ll never know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world

Besides being a reminder of the glorious beauty around us, the line, “I see friends shaking hands Saying, “How do you do?” They’re really saying “I love you,“ bounced my brain back to Rick Hansen’s quotation and again the simplicity of love.

Is it that simple to love? To recognize the everyday gestures we exchange with each other — the thank yous, the complements, the gentle touch on the shoulder or arm of a person to acknowledge you hear them or see them, an exchange of smiles — is a form of love.

May the two offerings above spark a new exploration into what love means. May the recognition that we give or express more love than we might have thought capable, balance a hard angry reaction to the realities of pain and suffering around us and soften our responses and thoughts. “I think to myself what a wonderful world”!