If Love is a Choice Then Choosing Love is Choosing Connection

It Goes Way Beyond Feelings

It goes beyond kindness; it is the epitome of kindness to choose love. What or who you choose to love is about you making a connection.

So, what do you choose every day? Is it sports, a sports team, a person, food, writing, career, family, or …?

You’ve heard, “love is blind.” Love can make you do things you never thought possible, but doesn’t that teeter on addiction?

Let’s face it, if your “love” is gambling and you gamble quite a bit, then isn’t what you love really an addiction?

Don’t confuse this with loving deeply and with great devotion. No. There is a line that can be crossed in the name of love that becomes unhealthy and damaging.

When it comes to people, we choose to love sometimes beyond their faults because everyone has faults. When you wake up every day, look over at your partner and say, “I choose you today,” you are choosing to love that person no matter their flaws. You are choosing connection.

Anyone who is or has been married or has children knows that love is a choice. You choose to see the good. You choose to remember why you married that person in the first place. You choose to remember why you decided to have children. You choose to look past the small flaws, and you continue to walk hand-in-hand with that person.

The same goes for your kids. They will go through terrible twos and their I’m-always-right teen years, but you dig down deep and choose to love them regardless.

Die-hard sports fans can be the same way. I live in Washington Commanders territory, and you cannot go through the winter season without seeing the devotion of Commanders fans to their beloved football team.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t feelings that go along with love. It is merely to state that to continue to love, goes beyond feelings. As John Kim writes in Psychology Today, there are a series of choices. Love is not based on light switch moments where a switch is turned on and you suddenly love someone or something. It is a choice.

First, is the choice based upon principles, logic, chemistry, etc. The list, according to Kim, is endless. To begin the process of love, you make a choice to love or not.

As time goes on, there will be arguments. We are all human, so we will, at some point, hurt others and be hurt by others. It is inevitable. When there are big hurts like cheating, lying, or abuse, you begin to wonder if your choice to love this person is good and right. You can also doubt your choice when smaller annoyances occur — their shopping habits gone wild or messiness or bad financial habits. That list can be endless as well.

At the end of the day, however, you have a choice to stay or not to stay.

The goo-goo eyes phase is long gone, and you are dealing with everyday life situations. This goes for loving your kids or your favorite sports team. When your team loses game after game after game, you have a choice to continue to devote your energy to the team or not. The same goes for loving another person.

Last year I almost walked out on my marriage. It was a very rocky time. Again, those of you who have been married for a while understand that marriage will not always be honeymoons and roses. The veil of pitter-patter heartbeats will fade, and you will be facing a person you have to choose to stay with despite your vows of “for better or worse.”

You choose to stay or not. You choose to love and continue the connection that is bound to love, to connect, and honor your “yes.”

If you stay, you can grow stronger, which is what has happened with us. Truth be told, I was reminded by God that I made a vow to God, not just to my partner. Go ahead, say it. Oh, snap.

But because I chose to stay, I looked at my husband with a new heart.

John Kim also writes, “The longer you stay on that flight and share a journey together, the more fruit the process will bear. Your investment pays off. Your choices become easier. You become stronger as a couple, but also as individuals, assuming the love process is healthy — which means that both of you are doing the work.

The choice to love creates opportunities to hit notes in your life that you could never hit alone. That’s what makes your choice worth it.”

And that is why I stayed. Because the day I chose to stay, I realized that he is worth it. I looked him in the eyes and said, “I choose you today.”

I’m not perfect. He’s not perfect. Together we are imperfect, but we choose to love and stay connected.

How about you? What choices have you made to connect with love?

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