I love you.
There, that wasn’t so hard to say, was it?
It’s one thing to say I love you to your grandmother, father, children, or even a close friend, but in reality this single phrase is much more complex than it appears.
Think of the first time you were involved in a serious relationship. Did you say I love you on the first date? If so, then you probably didn’t mean it.
If you waited until you had been dating for months, then the phrase itself probably didn’t carry a ton of weight in your relationship because the concept of love was likely already expressed in some other way.
Just as leaders must lead by example. Couples express their love to each other in countless ways.
In our capitalist society, love itself has become an idealism. Just as the American Dream has transformed from a simple concept of owning a home and raising a family to owning several homes, a few luxury vehicles, and taking several exotic vacations every year, the act of expressing our love for one another has reached epic proportions.
When it comes to a marriage proposal, we are no longer satisfied with getting down on one knee and presenting a ring. No, there must be airplanes in the sky, dropping life-size teddybears adorned with diamond necklaces!
Or perhaps your proposal has to appear on the big screen at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium. The fact is, expectations are sky high, and simply saying I love doesn’t seem to cut it anymore.
So perhaps the reason people often struggle with what should be a simple phrase is that we as a society have unwillingly destroyed the concept.
After all, when comparing two couples, is the couple who professes their love for one another verbally more likely to succeed than the couple who does not?
No, love itself is proven by action.
Love is the man who sits at his ailing spouse’s hospital bed.
Love is the woman who waits for years for her husband, or future husband to return from combat.
On the other hand, love can simply be a parent taking his son or daughter to the park.
So with all these different variations of love, why is it so hard to say I love you?
I can’t pretend to know the answer for certain, but there is no emotion that stifles our ability to do anything quite like fear. Saying I love you is a way of letting our guard down. When we say I love you, we are admitting that not having this love would hurt us.
No one wants to admit their weaknesses, but if you think about it, we all have this same weakness.
It’s part of the human condition.