Do You Fall In Love, Or Do You Choose To Love?

You meet someone you like and before you know it, you’re hanging out almost every day. After this, you probably “define the relationship” followed by the eventual three letters people either blurt out or are terrified to say, “I love you.”

Think back to a moment when you loved someone. Did you choose to love them or did you fall in love?

I remember falling in love. It was the most euphoric and intense experience because I couldn’t get enough of the other person. However, just like anything else in life, you can get complacent when your new toy is no longer “new.” This is when most people ask themselves questions like “What will happen if I don’t feel this way anymore,” or “What if we fall out of love?”

What is love?

Too many people confuse the concept of love with practicing love. When we fall in love, we tend to feel like we are not in control, but what happens when you stop falling and you stand up? At this point, more often than not, we tend to leave our relationship because our initial concerns of not feeling like we once did are coming true.

This is where love becomes a choice. A deliberate conscious act of effort and committing to your significant other every single day.

We tend to struggle with this concept now-a-days because we’ve been told love should be free-flowing and natural. We shouldn’t necessarily have to work. Yet, think of anything you do in life that you really want like getting those Coachella tickets you’d be willing to wait hours for, losing weight, or getting a job.

We make choices based off of how important they are to us and as one’s relationship progresses, we tend to pick incorrectly. We prioritize watching our favorite Netflix show instead of giving our partner 100% of our individualized attention.

If I treated my girlfriend like a client I’m trying to win business from, there would be no reason for her to leave. I’m consistently trying to court her and find new ways to get her attention, just like I did at the beginning.

You have to work your ass off every day in order to make things work. You can’t simply wake up every day and not do anything different. Choosing every day to embrace what you have and be excited about making the choice to continue it is what love is all about.