Hola world. I am probably only going to keep this in my journal for a very short time. I’m not exactly comfortable having things on the internet. But I wrote it in response to an email I was sent (I take part in intellectual discussions with friends in this way) and I’m rather proud of it so I thought I’d share with the world incase someone should see it and be positively influenced.

Life is a chance to live. It isn’t handed to us, the key to success, and there is a big difference between someone who just exists and a person who throws himself into it; who strives, who pushes himself every day through blood, sweat, and tears, and who will inevitably excel just through the virtue of never having given up. Life is a chance, and a choice. And life was created for those of us who would chose to survive.

I believe that in life we have to take chances, and this is what I’ve always done. You will always be scared of failure, but you should never let it keep you from taking a chance, for trying to get what you want, or else you’re not really living. Too many people waste the life they are given, by letting fear hold them back.

I was once asked the question of what do I think ideal in a mate. XP This is the answer I gave, after much contemplation. It’s built off experience, of what I enjoyed and what the essential characteristics really appealed to me every time I was drawn to someone. I actually kept a running list, at one point. I think the most important thing in the world is self respect. I think that all people are essentially good. We all have faults and weaknesses, but we all also have something similar, which is an intrinsic goodness inside our souls. Even the worst criminal has it. You can tell that someone has good inside them just by how deeply they've hurt themselves by acting wrongly. I think it's because we're all made by God, that goodness is a reflection of Him inside us. So I believe love is the ability to see that, and recognize and respond to it.

This is my definition of love. I think that if the time was right, and if circumstances were in favor of it, anyone could be in love with anyone else on earth, if they ever bothered to open their mind or heart and take the chance. However, we can't all love everybody in a
real, deep meaningful way. Not everybody is open to this. So after self respect, which I define as the ability to have a dream and work hard and persevere to accomplish it, that openness is the next most key characteristic in a person. That’s why, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has noticed it, some people are "real," and others just aren't. It's not that anyone is better than anyone else, it's just that people have to be open, to have the willingness to give of one's self in order to receive. This leads to people who are genuine, friendly, and confident.

What I’m trying to say can be confusing, because all of these values are so interconnected they overlap and lead into and flow out of each other, but truthfully they are just all definitions for the word morality. It's easier to understand these things if you have the
intelligence to think them through and analyze them, so that is why people of intelligence and depth who think about things like ethics and religion and anything that moves people and shapes the world have more of a capacity to really love. Intelligence is next on the list. Again, it has nothing to do with book smart. Intelligence is the ability to have depth and values and insight, which comes from a sense of what is important in the world. Priorities can determine intelligence, but not always, because people can decide to want things they know are wrong or meaningless. As I said, confident is important, but that's just another word for self respect. It's different from arrogant, because arrogance is trying to force someone else to respect you, and really just shows insecurity. Patience, because that's the ability to forgive someone else their faults, and you can only forgive the faults of someone you love, because you see they aren't really defined by their mistakes.

Love is respect. Love is hero-worship, because it's so based off the good inside people. By looking at what is true and real inside someone, we can see what God is. That's how I know He exists, and even if someone came up with solid evidence, I could never be convinced to believe there is no God. Because I've seen Him in everyone, and every time I wanted someone as a friend or anything else it was because I saw that good in them. And I'm not denying that people have faults or saying we shouldn't forgive, only that we should never focus on them but look past them to what really matters.

Far too often I think people define love as the privilege of getting to see the worst side of someone, but miss the point that it's because you are so comfortable in the knowledge that they understand and recognize the real true you that you don't have to worry they'll be driven away by mistakes you've made or problems you have. At least, that's my analysis.

So in summary I'd say my list can be summed up by the same adjectives I used in the text message I sent my friend who proposed the question, only I am only now beginning to understand them fully. Intelligence, depth, values, insight, patience, confidence, not too perverted, likes to argue, sarcastic humor, rough around the edges but with a hint of a softer side.

Haha this is what I do when I can't sleep. I know it's probably pretty hard to follow. Hope you enjoyed! And I hope you’ll think about this the next time you tell someone you love them. I’ve heard friends who have had several different boyfriends/girlfriends over the course of their teen years say that they told every single on of their partners, for however brief a time they dated, that they loved them. The thought of this, of ever hearing those words from someone who didn’t mean it, horrifies me. So I hope anyone who sees this will think hard about what love really means and encompasses, and not say the words just because they are “the thing to say.”