Love. Love. Love.

I once had a crazy sociology professor in college. He was fired the semester after I took him. Not because he was unable to refute a claim of bestiality made by Wally George. Nor was it because he came in one day wanting to know if any of us had seen his heroin dealer. He wasn’t even fired because he told us all we weren’t going to heaven because there were only 144,000 spots in it and the little old lady down the street who had never done anything wrong just got spot 143,999. Nope, he was fired because one day he had us chant “f*ck” for 20 minutes. I have to admit, that was a little weird.

Anyway, I loved that class. It was one of the most thought provoking classes I ever took. Our professor would start each day off with a question and depending on how the class answered, he would play devil’s advocate by challenging the majority view. One day the question was - is it better to be loved or to be in love. The majority answered that it was better to be loved. As usual, I was in the minority. I have always felt it is better to be in love.

First, being in love feels great! Seriously, there is nothing that can compare to the feeling of loving another person. But the real reason that being in love is better is because being loved by others isn’t going to help you love yourself.

I realize that many people think having someone else love them will make them feel better about themselves. But it won’t. In order to love yourself, you need to LOVE! The onus is on you. No amount of outside approval will substitute.

The way to learn how to love yourself is by learning to love others. And since love begets love, there is an endless supply; you can love as many people as your heart will allow you to. And the more you love, the more you will love yourself. It is as simple as that. Love is all you need.