One very important thing about love: love is not worth searching for; love solves none of your problems, love does not lift you up where you belong, and love is not all you need.

People who look for love to fill a longing for fulfillment, happiness, purpose, confidence, direction, or satisfaction will never find any of that, because you will fall in love with a human being, and every single human being on this planet is exactly that: human. Humans are self-serving, stubborn, short-sighted, and flawed in an infinite number of combinations. Love allows a person to burrow into your heart, consume your mind, and reroute your life. What do you think will happen, happily ever after?

When you start looking at love as a goal, as a prize, as a trophy, as a bandage, as a roadmap, or as anything else but a decision to give irreplaceable parts of yourself to someone else, then you will utterly fuck yourself up because the reality of compromise, fighting, and endings which you conveniently disregarded will destroy you. What people don't realize is that love is not safety, it's danger; you don't take control, you take a chance. You're putting your trust in the hands of a very human person, and that person is never the hero you've built him or her up to be. Never.

People are never perfect, but their moments of selfishness and greed are always tempered by moments of generosity, caring, and unbelievable goodness. Knowing this will keep you grounded, realistic, and open-minded to the fact that love can last a lifetime or end tomorrow, that people change for better or for worse, and that you are one of those people.

Love is meant to be discovered, not hunted down. It's meant to be savored, and not craved for. All the expectations and music videos and chick lit and happy endings you've heaped onto love will cheapen it into a miracle cure for all the aches and hurts you think you have, and you will realize one day that it's not even that, and that you're aching and hurting even more.

There are other ways to be happy and feel wanted and have purpose. You are going to spend so much time trying to find one person who can do it all for you, that you'll believe in yourself less and less.

I'm not telling you to give up on love now, but you have to know what it is, what it means, and what it will take from you before you can truly appreciate what it can give back.