My wife, Carolina, is an intimidating woman. She’s gorgeous, she’s fit, and she’s super intelligent. On top of that she’s hilarious.
She’s also not too impressed with me. Not to say she doesn’t respect what I do or value me, but she sees me for who I really am. She knows I have sweaty feet. She’s seen firsthand the recession of my hairline. She sees me when I’m most insecure.
So sometimes, I’m tempted to impress her. There are times, in order to get her to love me more (or something), I try to remind her how awesome I am. I’ll mention the cool things I do so she gets the picture everyone else sees of me. And I’m realizing that’s the worst possible way to get her to love me.
You see; love is not about showing other people how great you are. It’s not proving to them that you’re lovable. Love is about proving that the other person is lovable. It’s about showing them how wonderful they are.
If I’m going to love my wife properly, I need to show her how amazing she is. I need to praise her. I need to recount all the ways she’s amazing.
Love is external—exuding positivity to the object of your affection. It’s not about exuding your awesomeness.
That makes me question other things. In my projects—writing, businesses, websites… Are my projects a labor of love? Or do I merely try to show people how “awesome” I am? Am I exuding positivity to my readers, or merely trying to prove myself to them?
What if my projects were labors of love? How would they look different?
And what if your projects were labors of love? What would you do differently? What positivity would you exude?
What if the whole world made their work a labor of love? Imagine what the world could look like.
