Love is Like Oxygen, but Delivered like Luggage

KSAs. Every year, you have an employee review and at some time, someone mentions them—knowledge, skills and abilities. Your boss tells you what you have, what you need, and what you better work on pretty darn quick or you’ll never make it to the “next level.” Every job requires different KSAs and we all have a different set of them. Some we are just born with, some we learn and some we build, often painfully. As I write during the Beijing Olympics, we can admit that there are a lot of people that know the sport of swimming, but few will ever be a Dara Torres, or a Michael Phelps.

And so it goes with love. Love is a skill. When given it is a beautiful gift and given freely, an act of profound grace, but most of all it is a skill. Everyone is born with an ability to love, no matter how wretched a human society creates, somewhere there is a heart of love. But unnurtured, it is a skill never acquired, or stamped out like unwanted embers that can cause too much damage. Therefore, people differ in their ability to love. It's like writing. There are people who are gifted storytellers and so there are people whose ability to love transcends art. People whose love fills a room and lights a night, people who love people and things without restraint. In other words, people who are truly gifted. But there are also brilliant technical writers—they are horribly unappreciated, because their gift is so precise and esoteric, appreciated by few, but necessary to many. And so there are people who love in the same way. People who care so deeply about society, or dogs, plants, or orphans, that they will dedicate their entire lives, fortunes and beings to improving the lot of the world. But most people are somewhere in the middle and most struggle in at least some aspects of it.

I started writing this several weeks ago, but couldn't figure out a way to get to the point. In the interim, I read The Shack, by William P. Young and as one of those Beautiful People, he made it all so clear to me. I started this post after hearing a very painful story from a cancer survivor who shared how she sometimes felt alone on her journey because others were uncomfortable and though they all meant well, all the trappings of manners and proper behavior and formality made her feel isolated. And what we need, all of us, is love, pure acceptance, especially when we are hurt, phsically, emotionally, or spiritually. And yet it's so hard because to truly open your heart to another opens yourself to risk--to hurt and disappointment. Consider this exceprt from The Shack:

Humans…have a knack for taking a verb that is alive and full of grace and turning it into a dead noun that reeks of rules: something growing and alive dies… If you and I are friends, there is an expectancy that exists within our relationship. When we see each other or are apart, there is an expectancy of being together, of laughing and talking. That expectancy has no concrete definition; it is alive and dynamic and everything that emerges from our being together is a unique gift shared by no one else. But what happens when I change that “expectancy” to an “expectation”—spoken or unspoken? Suddenly, law has entered into our relationship. You are now expected to perform in a way that meets my expectations. Our living friendship rapidly deteriorates into a dead thing with rules and requirements. It is no longer about you and me, but about what friends are supposed to do, or the responsibilities of a good friend.

And so, I endeavor from this day forth to try to live with expectancy and not expectations in all my personal relationships. I endeavor to assume that we all have good intentions for one another, but we are clumsy and unskilled in the ways of love and acceptance. Imagine how much better the world could be if we could all open our hearts and minds to the love of others! Don't treat love like they do our luggage on the trams and conveyor belts, treat all your relationships as if they provide the oxygen that sustains you, because in the end, they do! With love and acceptance, Lisa