It’s weird when we stop to think about what love really is, isn’t it? I say that because nowadays the phrase “I Love you” is becoming more and more casual, and it’s hard to know what we mean by it when we say it.

Society has changed. We are more connected than ever, and things move faster than ever before with all our new technologies for keeping in touch. This is so different from older times. With greater connection between each other, we feel more, and often feelings can seem more complex.

We have more friends in more places. We have our online communities and our real ones. It’s common place to feel you always need to be surrounded by some kind of community, even if it’s just a superficial connection. Perhaps with all this buzz around having connection no matter how casual, we’ve lost the true meaning of what it means to love someone.

If we think about what love really means, we could mention a cliché like: “love is to accept others unconditionally” or “love is to take care of others without expecting anything in return.” To a certain extent, love probably is all of those things. But I believe it’s more than that too. It’s hard to say if we really know what  love is for sure.

For example, let’s look at the love a mother has for her child. She is there for her child no matter what. She doesn’t judge her child and accepts any mistakes with compassion. She has sympathy for her child whatever her child may be feeling. Some might call this pure love – the love only a mother could have for her offspring.

Outside of the mother/child relationship, is there any other place where this pure love is felt? If we’re just supporting each other, can’t that just be considered friendship? Can’t taking care of someone just be considered having affection? Can’t accepting someone’s mistakes just be considered being forgiving? So, would the feeling of love then encompass all of these other feelings?

The Brazilian dictionary says that love is a feeling that causes someone to have affection for someone or something that they think is beautiful, worthy, or great. It can also be defined as an “animal instinct” or biological feeling like a sexual desire that makes a person want to reproduce.

In my opinion, equating love with just sexual desire is not accurate. Love is more than that. It’s what makes you want to make the world better for those you care about. Love is to learn tolerance for others and their differences. Love is wanting to be a better person for the sake of your relationships. Love is what binds friendships together so that even after years of not talking, friends can rejoin and connect as strongly as ever. It’s wanting someone to be close to you because you care about them so much, but knowing that sometimes you need to let them go.  Love is something soft and peaceful, greater than all the other good feelings combined.

That’s why it’s weird to see so many people saying “I Love you” to each other in superficial conversations. It’s such a casual way to use such a powerful word. Of course we can love more than one person in our lives. In fact, it’s good to love as many people in our lives as we can. But see if you can really practice loving others through your actions and words, instead of just saying that you love others. Practicing love in this way feels great, and the more you give, the more you receive in return.

Society is tired of wars and violence. It’s time to put that nonsense to an end and tap into our natural ability and desire to love each other as much as possible! So, let’s do it. Let’s love! Love one, love some, love much, and love it all!