The Pursuit Of True Love and Happiness

Sometimes, the true pursuit of love and happiness is knowing when to stop looking when you have found them, treasuring what you have found and holding on to them tight. Because sometimes, we just cannot stop pursuing, thinking they could be more and they could be better.

Truth is finding love and happiness is all that matters because they will not get any better the more you push them to get better. They, like all things, only get better when you take care of them and nourish them.

It is not true that everyone deserves to be happy. The simple truth is everybody deserves to be happy and to make others happy. Everybody deserves to love and be loved at the same time. For love and happiness, I feel, are emotions that only truly be appreciated and understood if shared with others.

Pure happiness and love are very hard to find. But what makes it difficult to hold on and treasure them is that some people expect to be loved and made happy the way they want. Some people just cannot be happy in being given the kind of happiness and love others can give, thinking they could be better, they deserve more or simply want the kind they know.

Just because someone does not love us the way we want to be loved does not mean that person does not love us with all he/she has.

And that is the pitfall of finding love and happiness. In our desire to get everything, we fail to understand what precious we were given. In the end, we lose the love and happiness we have found. And bitterly enough, we only truly appreciate what we have until we have lost it.

When you find whatever and whoever made you happy and loved, do not push them away. Keep them close to your heart and nurture them for that may be the secret of them growing and your coming to understand the love and happiness you are given.

Do not push them away to test if they will follow you. Life and fate themselves will throw their own tests at you, do not add more misery to the ones that will be caused by forces you have no control over. Do not feel false confidence that just because you pushed love and happiness away and they still followed you. Sometimes in our desire to see how far they could go, we fail to look behind us and realize nobody and nothing is running after us anymore.

Do not be deterred by people who say you are so cheesy because you always say “I love you” to your partner for they do not know how it feels when the one you love stops saying those words to you. Do not be afraid to cry when you are hurt by your loved one in fear of being ridiculed by others who see you.

For a heart that mourns for another is a heart that truly loves. Do not be afraid to show how much you miss the one you love for true love feels alone when not with the one he/she loves.

For all the pain, heartaches, regrets and shortcomings you receive, do not think you are alone for all you may know, you are making the one you love suffer the very same. Appreciate all the corniness and cheesiness of love for you will miss them once you no longer receive them. Appreciate the smiles given to you, the look of love sent your way, the laugh he gives you, the small things he gives you, the sacrifices made for you.

Do not dwell on what was not given to you. Because you lose the chance of loving, being happy and sharing in the love and joy with the one you love. For nothing could be as painful as realizing that the one you love was all alone in the happiness while you were consumed with wanting more.

Live in the moment of love and joy with the one you love for you will never know it will be taken from you. Memories are lonely companions instead of the real thing. Regrets are bitter mates especially when you know you had the chance to prevent them or even correct them.

We all have our faults, shortcomings and imperfections. But do not let them wreak havoc in love and happiness. Love and happiness are present despite our faults, shortcomings and imperfections, which should mean love and happiness triumphed regardless of them.

Be happy that you are happy, but be happier that you make someone happy despite of your imperfections. Very few things can compare to the disappointment and hurt of being told by the one you love that you do no make them happy anymore. Love, I have belatedly realized, can only exist with happiness.

We are who we are. We cannot change who we are. We cannot change the way we love. But that does not mean we are entitled to insist ourselves on the ones we love and to think of only ourselves. For loving someone truly and making our loved ones feel loved require the most difficult act of selflessness.

And so, when the one you love is no longer happy with you, pray for the courage to let them go and find whoever it is who will make them happy. Thank them for giving you the chance to love them because in loving them, you were given the chance to know what it was like to be loved and to love happily, if even for a little time.

Bernadette Anne de Castro currently lives with her husband, Eric Verner, and two sons, Nikolai Alexander and Friederik Mikhail, in Carthage, Tunisia. Her permanent base is in Ottawa, Canada. For more articles from this author, visit http://bernadetteanne.blogspot.com