Will Urich

The Vision of Love

— Originally published in print // Permalink

“In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.”
—J.K. Simmons, Juno

It’s funny how we, all of us, put off the truth we know in our hearts. We are attached to this world, to our insecurities. I know I am. I even put off writing this article, something I know is right and good, because I am scared. I am scared to say something that won’t sound good, but I’m even more scared of not being able to write this article the way it should be written. I’m scared of messing up, failing, doing things that I believe are right but injuring those I care about in the process. I wish and pray that I will know what to do, and then I realize what I need to know but am scared of doing it. Why? Who knows—like I said, maybe I’m just scared of failing—but I think what freaks me out most is that I know I can’t control my world. I can’t ensure that this paper is written perfectly or that I don’t say the right things, act the right way.

I’m so scared of messing up in this world and “letting go” that I have reached a point where the more I want to “hold on” to the ones I love, the more easily I lose them. It certainly seems easier to do what’s “safe.” It seems that the best way to love someone or something is to cling to it with a mad obsession, but the funny thing about love is that it exists and flourishes without control. Love is its own control, its own regulation, system, and way of life. If you love someone or something you would do anything to show that love, even if it were risky or hard, but you would never, ever, want to control or force love because, at some point, to love truly we must let go.

Let’s let go of the obsession for things. Let’s start learning about things not because we are graded on them. Let us let go of the fear of losing the ones we love or losing love itself because God’s love, the love that we all share in our hearts, is much wiser about matters of the heart than we can ever be. Let us let go of the fear of failure because we pursue success knowing that we will all fail sometime. Let us go into love because we know that love never fails: we do. Though we influence our destiny, our choice can’t rule over what happens to us, it cannot protect us forever or give solace through “safety.” I am no theologian or “philosopher king”; I have no more right to believe in what I say than you do or any reason to expect that “letting go” will solve all of my problems; but maybe what I am saying is that I know that searching for a path to happiness for the sake of being happy will be an endless search. Happiness comes to those who accept it but do not claim it for their own.

I do not have enough control over myself to do only good or only bad; I just have to trust that I will do the right thing over everything else, and if I don’t, well, I guess I don’t. As much as we all want to be perfect, it isn’t going to happen. So here, in this life, I can’t expect everyone to be perfect. But if you still love someone and want to be with him or her even when he or she isn’t perfect, well, then maybe that is love. If your classes are freaking hard, but you still love them and can’t imagine doing something else, that’s love. If you see your family more than you see your videogame console, that is love. If you go to church just once instead of a party, that’s love. If you see the sun setting and you just want to stand and watch it for no other reason than because it is beautiful, that is love. If, when you sleep at night, you think of one special person in your life instead of your job, your car, your computer, your grades or your hyped-up image of college, that is love. Let go; it’s okay to love, to make mistakes, to get hurt, to take risks, to laugh, to cry, to make love, to talk to God, to hold hands, to be held. It’s all part of this life anyways: why not live and take a chance at being happy instead of “safe”?