Love is a skill.

Love is something that just happens to you. Right person. Right time. Right place. BOOM … happily ever after. Love, our culture conditions us to believe, is a result of luck. It's about finding “the one”, that perfect person just for us. Our person. The dirty underbelly of this cultural belief though… is that when things get difficult, and they most certainly will, it becomes way too easy to decide that it means it's not real love. And that is start of the very scary downward spiral… where it becomes easier to feed resentment, bitterness and blame than it is to feed love. Yet whatever we feed, grows. Delusion and disillusionment go hand in hand. And disillusionment ends in disappointment. The grand delusion of the luck of love, the eternal effortlessness that should be part of loving the right person comes along with the inevitable crushing disappointment that, unfortunately, it's not going to be rainbows and unicorns from here until eternity. The movies end when the guy gets the girl. They stop after the tumultuous drama of the pursuit and roll the credits telling us not to worry, they got their “happily ever after”. We are conditioned to believe it will be that easy. But the bad news is that you won't get handed your perfect soulmate love on a silver platter like winning the lottery and never having to work another day in your life. But the good news is… you can actually have it. Happily ever after isn't a myth… it's just that the story is told wrong. Happily ever after is actually something that happens as a result of intentional and conscious effort over time. i.e. it's the result of practicing relationship as a skill. Just like if you dedicated a few years to really truly trying to learn another language, not just say you are going to learn it but actually investing hours into practice, the odds are very high that you will in fact be able to learn that language. Relationship is no different, it's just not as romantic to see it that way. Only European indie films take pride in showing the very real and gritty truth that the happily-ever-after is earned. Because it's much more spellbinding to think it's as easy as finding the woman who fits that gorgeous glass slipper, or waiting for prince charming to offer his perfect kiss awakening the sleeping beauty from her slumber. But that's not how this universe works. Effort is the currency that is exchanged for reward. Whatever we put effort into, we are rewarded with skill and mastery as a result. Treat relationship as something that is worth investing your time, energy, and yes even money, into… and it will get better. Truly beautiful relationships are available to anyone who is willing to do the work to get good at them. That's the only secret. ~ Damien Bohler
(written by a human)