The Importance of Saying I Love You

" I Love You's "

The human race is one that is filled with cement walls in place to avoid vulnerabilities. We are all so busy trying not to get hurt that we often hurt each other first, even by simple omission or accidental intention. We often are so concerned with protecting ourselves from rejection, pain, and fearful situations, that we talk ourselves out of one of the simplest, most intense, and blindly instinctual urges. We are ridiculously quick to talk ourselves out of the importance of saying, “I love you.”

Love, regardless of whether it is for a child, a partner, a parent, a sibling, or a friend, is risky business. When we love and allow our emotions to not only be known or expressed we risk one of three things; rejection, loss, and having to accept love back. So many of us are wandering around with such deep wounds that the act of accepting love in return is just as scary as rejection.

Wouldn’t it be incredible if we as a human race could drop our defenses for just one day, and be completely expressive without fear?

We would have the capacity to just tell people the honest meaning they carry in our lives, the effect they have on us, and the course we would like to see the relationship grow even when we are already in the relationship. Omission of expression is nearly the same thing as taking one for granted. Nobody dies with the regret of telling someone too often how much they cared, but people die everyday with their hearts still wounded from a love they never truly expressed.

It is easy to get wrapped up in our own wounds, our own feelings of ambivalence and our fears of feeling alone in the world. After all, a love that remains unexpressed is a love that nobody knows about. It is not until someone finds the courage to share their feelings that they are then blessed with the knowledge that they, too, are worthy of the love they are giving.

Children, spouses, and the people in our life that we truly love need daily reminders of the fact that they are loveable. After all, the world can leave such horrific dents on our outer layers, and we can easily get caught in living within those layers. It’s cold out there. It’s painful out there. People are rude out there and often even a stranger can sting us with our own vulnerable fears and hang ups. What keeps us going in times of self doubt, fear, pain, and anguish is not just the hope of love, but the knowledge of love.

There is truly no underestimating the importance of saying, “I love you.” Those three little words are, in the author’s opinion one half of the most important sentence in the world, “I love you, accept you, and how can I help you.” The term love implies both acceptance and the willingness to place someone’s needs ahead of our own. The term love implies more than a simple selfish passing moment, but a deep understanding of who someone is, and the knowledge that they are good enough without their perfections we are so often seeking. Without love and acceptance, what really do we have from each other?
Money, power, prestige, and fame can never buy the same feeling that your heart gets the first time the love of your life confesses their feelings. That wonderful little flutter in the tummy is irreplaceable, and who would want to replace it? It lets you know you’re alive.

While there is no valid argument to deter the notion that to love someone is to risk losing someone, there is a valid argument against using that as an excuse. It is easy to hide, but not very fulfilling. Loving openly and honestly and taking the risk that someone precious and dear to us might not be in our lives one day is part of the risk of daring to live fully. A heart that hasn’t broken can’t grow. A heart that hasn’t loved grows cold. And a heart that lives in fear shrinks with time.

Loving someone, and telling them often, is a gift. And not just to the recipient of your love, but to yourself as well. When you truly love someone and find the courage to express it well and express it often, you are giving more of a gift to yourself than anyone. You are claiming your will and right to live fully and completely and to bask in life’s joys just as quickly as you are able and willing to hurt from life’s pain. Why live the one sided coin lifestyle. You’re destined to feel pain no matter how hard you try to close off your heart. As humans, we are simply not designed that way. We are social creatures, put on this planet to nurture each other. Living alone without recognized love is just as painful, if not more so, than living with love and losing it.
Never underestimate the importance of saying, “I love you.” With a deep breath and a leap of faith, close your eyes, whisper the words and you can be sure when you open them again your life will have changed for the better.