How to Love a Stranger
Do you think it is possible to love someone you don’t know?
It depends on how you define love. Real love, a love free from attachment, is the feeling of wishing for someone else’s happiness. So often we confuse love with desire or passion, and we attach our happiness to another person. We may believe that our partner and loved ones are supposed to make us happy and when they say or do something that upsets us, we are disappointed and let down. When we expect others to make us happy, we will always inevitably find ourselves on the roller coaster of attachment, feeling great when our loved ones make us feel great, and feeling down when they are unable to live up to our expectations.
There is a different choice. We can love others without any desire for them to act or be a certain way. We can reframe love from being something about ourselves, which is based in ego, to genuine care for another person’s happiness. It is not I love you if you act the way I want you to. It is I love you because you are a living being with inherent value and I want you to be happy.
Understanding this, it is not a giant leap to love people we do not know. In fact, a beautiful exercise is to go through your normal day mentally wishing for the happiness of those you encounter. When you are in line at the grocery store, notice the employee checking out your items and think to yourself, may this person be happy. If you find yourself cut off on the highway by another driver, take a moment to breathe and remember that they are a human being too, and wish them happiness. The more you practice wishing love, the more effortless it becomes to extend love to everyone around you.
Twice over the past month I have stood on a busy corner in my town holding a sign that simply reads, “I love you.” I was not sure how this would go over, since telling strangers you love them is not exactly conventional. To my delight, my sign has been a big hit. People shout they love me from their car windows, wave, honk, and blow me kisses. Some have brought me water, and some have turned their cars around just so they could let me know that my small action was appreciated.
I find myself smiling and laughing the entire time as I watch the expression on people’s faces shift from surprise to joy. I may not know you, but I can most certainly love you.
And I do.
