Capacity to Love

You can normally classify emotions clearly. Anger. Joy. Sadness. Heartbreak. Fear. Love. Affection. Whatever may be. But how do you classify the father daughter dance at a wedding?

It is the joy of a new beginning. The daughter is now married, and starting a family of her own. This is a wonderful time filled with hopes and dreams.

On the other side, there is nothing quite like he love of a father for a daughter. So at the same time as she is moving on with her life, the nature of their love has changed. He loved her first. So it is the loss, and the gain, that is so emotional.

The daughter doesn’t love him any less, but things are changing. Life is moving on.

What I’ve learned over the years that no one every told me was the capacity to love doesn’t work the same way as common math.

Let’s say you have an initial capacity to love of 100. It’s not 100%, it’s just 100. Think of it as a hundred units of love. If it was 100% of love, the more people you love, the less you would love each individual. You used to love someone 40%, now it’s 30% because you love someone new 10%.

That’s not how it works.

How it works is when you start with a love of 100, then you add someone new you love, your capacity to love is now 110. The 110 is your new 100%. There is no necessary diminishing of love for the first people you loved.

If you loved someone 40, you still love them 40. You just now also love someone else 10.

This was an amazing discovery, and opened up my understanding of people who love a lot. They just have more numbers of people they love. And they can continue to love more. That is a great gift, understanding that. Love is not a zero sum game. Love is abundant and the more you love, the more love you get.

So go give more love.