LOVE DRIVES IT ALL

Today may be the last day of the celebration of “THIS IS GOOD” first birthday, but for me, every day will be a celebration of it. It is such a simple philosophy yet so impactful. Although half of the time when I say it, I don’t really feel like THIS IS GOOD, it still causes me to find the good in everything even when I think there is nothing good to find. Thank you, Tami, for sharing with the world, THIS IS GOOD.

“When you do anything in love, you will have greater happiness and success. When you shift your focus to things you can control, expectations and nerves decrease, confidence increases, and joy takes over.” -Tami Matheny

After reading this quote by Tami in her book it inspired a whole trail of thoughts on the concept of love.

Love, a word of a lot of people feel uncomfortable saying and feeling. People think by not letting themselves feel the emotion of love they are protecting themselves. If you ask me, they are really hurting themselves. Most people think they can do their job, sport, goal, etc., without it, and while they can, it’s not as impactful as when you let love in. Love is the greatest reason for the motivation and dedication that we have. It’s what fuels us when we are lost, and helps us to push through until we find our way back home. Love is what keeps us going through the good and the bad times. Love is what this whole thing called life is really about.

Now here’s the catch, love is not an emotion, it’s an action. It may be easy at first to fall in love with a person, job, or sport, but when the waters get rough, you may start finding more reasons to go than to stay. But you see if you do that, you will do it again when the waters get rough. I heard this quote once, and I’m not sure who said it but I really liked it: “Love isn’t easy, and it takes a lot of work, you have to fight to stay in love, you have to go home when you are not in love and stay home until you fall back in love.”

When I was little, I remember seeing a soccer ball for the first time. Everything about it fascinated me. The red lettering on it, the stitches that ran between each shape that was stitched on the ball. As corny as it may be, it was love at first sight. Now I didn’t actually play with the ball at first, I would just stare at it. Until finally I got the confidence to throw it down and just start playing. I was in love. I dreamed of playing for the University of North Carolina one day. That love for soccer is what kept me outside all day, and what kept me practicing non-stop so I could make the varsity team my freshmen year of Highschool.

I did it, I made Varsity and my high school career started out so promising. When I neared the end of my career in high school I slowly started falling out of love with the sport. I got distracted, confused not sure why I was even playing in the first place. I wasn’t the little girl anymore who was mesmerized by the way a soccer ball looked. I was the girl who thought if I saw one more soccer ball I was going to scream. I went on to play college soccer, and that was the year I gave up. You see it was easy to give up because I had forgotten how much I loved the sport to begin with, when you don’t love something, you don’t really care if what your doing succeeds or fails. I hated two-a-days, I hated lifting, and I hated to practice. I didn’t see them as something that could help me be the best, I could be I saw it as something to check off my to-do list.

Do you ever get like that with your spouse, job, sport, etc? Where you are just going through the motions, buying flowers because it's an anniversary and they will be mad if you don’t. Showing up to work and just doing what needs to be done. When you do that, you are just existing. But when you fight to stay in love and keep the love you had in the first place, the love will infect those all around you. It will not only improve your mood and performance but it will improve everyone around your mood and performance. Love drives everything, that’s what we were put on this earth to do. Yes, our job and all of that is important, but it is what gives us the opportunity to help those around us and to love everybody always as one of my favorite authors Bob Goff would say.

I write this because I now understand why love is so important. I used to ask myself, why did Jesus do it? Why did he die on the cross? Why did He spend his life serving others? Well, that answer is simple, he did it for love.

Why did Martin Luther King Jr. spend his whole life dedicated to the cause to end black and white segregation? He did it for love.

You have a choice, you can be like me who just walked away and gave up, who when the coach slid the paper over for me to accept the scholarship for the following year and continue to play, decided to slide it back. Make no mistake it was not much, I did not do well that year and I played with zero heart, and zero love for the game. Or you can be like Jesus, or Martin Luther King Jr. who kept on going, who every day was reminded of why they were doing what they were doing. They were reminded that they were doing it for love, so keep going, and invite love in, and remember, LET LOVE DRIVE YOU.