Growing up, my parents always preached to my siblings and me that we need to love our family unconditionally — after hearing this repeated thousands of times, it became instilled in me. But what does loving someone or something actually mean?

Let’s take a formal approach, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has many meanings for love but I’ll only cherry-pick the first two.

It is defined as:

a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties and

an attraction based on sexual desire: affection and tenderness felt by lovers

The first definition applies to friends and family. If you “love” your friends and family then, by definition, it means you have a strong affection for them. Okay, now to dissect this. Say I have a friend named Joe. Joe and I have been friends for a while — I like Joe. At what point, if ever, does my affection towards Joe transition from like to love? If it does transition then that must mean there is a cause for the transition; but what could be a cause of the transition? A cop-out answer is to say time… let’s use this anyway.

Consider I create a computer program that observes time, once the time crosses a certain threshold — friendship changes from like to love. For this example, the time threshold was passed therefore friendship type is set to love; what is different aside from the label? I assume the label is accompanied by something else — but what exactly is this something else? Is it that I want the best for Joe? No, I don’t think it’s that simple because wanting the best for a person isn’t solely restricted to loving that person, I want the best for people that I don’t necessarily love. What else could it be then? Is it the willingness to do anything for Joe? No, it cannot be this either because I love my parents to death but there are still restrictions on what I would do for them. Could it be wanting to be with Joe all of the time? No, there is no way this is the case either, because if I were with my siblings 24/7 I would need to be put into a mental hospital — what could it possibly be then? I’m going to leave this question unanswered and come back to it later.

Moving to the second definition, this applies to a significant other. If you “love” your significant other then, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, you are attracted to them through sexual desire, but this shallow definition conflates love with infatuation. Where does the line get drawn? What differentiates love from infatuation? Let’s say, once more, that time is the differentiating factor. You need to be infatuated for a certain period before the feeling can transcend into love. Through this rationale, infatuation leads to love. But how do you know when the infatuation fades and the love emerges? Again, I will leave this question unanswered and come back to it later.

“This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.” — Aberjhani

Aberjhani captures my sentiment with this quote… it’s hard to understand what it means to love or what causes us to love, but we do know that we can love and that we should love. Just as my grandmother would always say, “to love and be loved is the most important thing.”

Now, to come back to the questions that I put off answering. To put it simply, love is everything and love is everywhere. On the micro-scale, love is the forgiveness of mistakes and acceptance of faults; it’s reliability and it’s vulnerability. It creates an unbreakable bond that can persist through anything and everything. A piece of that person will be broken off and remain with you forever, no matter if you’re aware of it or not. This holds true for friends, families, and significant others. On the macro-scale, love is the driving force for all that is good in this world. Everything positive can be traced back to the love of someone or something.

The world needs more love. This all starts by loving yourself — not the superficial and arrogant love, but the genuine love for yourself. Once you can do this, then you can be the beacon of love for others. These two things, together, are the keys to happiness and will lead to a better world.