My neighbor believes human beings only have two real desires. To love and to be loved.

“There is no fear in pure love,” he said. “It’s unconditional, but human beings are not capable of unconditional love.” He calls his ideal of pure love, God.

His statement that humans are incapable of unconditional love was interesting. It didn’t carry a negative connotation. He simply was pointing out that when people talk about “unconditional love” the talk can become blind and unrealistic. It can even set people up to become afraid of losing love.

He reasoned thus: Our human condition is conditional. Therefore, the love in it is conditional.

We mulled over an example. How do you love a drug addict? Do you give them the money to buy the drugs? The addict would love that. But drugs are self-destructive, even more, they destroy families. So, is it loving to lock up the addict so they can’t access drugs? You may be hated for it, but it seems more loving to save their life and protect others.

We can still aim for unconditional love, but we can’t make the ideal of unconditional love a human ideology or goal. We can’t make a list of actions that show unconditional love. Love is fluid, eternal, ongoing. It can’t be circumscribed within human actions.

Fortunately, the ideal of unconditional love is possible to understand. Infinite love, emitting and absorbing love actually makes sense. We can choose to be a part of it for the sheer fact that love exists. But, we don’t need to beat ourselves up by telling ourselves to love more all the time.

When my husband saw me feeling sorry for myself, he suggested I get out and take a long walk. I didn’t want to. I even got upset because he didn’t even give me some sympathy. But, God loves me and I do love to walk. I responded to my husband’s suggestion with that in mind. During the walk, I was able to shake off the self-pity and get back into life.