Why Hold Your Heart?

"I Love Thee To The Depth And Breadth And Height My Soul Can Reach" -Elizabeth Barrett Browning

One of the most sought out questions we ask, why do we love? What we don't ask too often is why we don't?

I have my own theories based on experiences I have had within myself and in conversations I've engaged in with others. I first must break down the word LOVE. The Miriam Webster dictionary says that love is,  " a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties." Ok. Sounds easy enough. So why are so many people terrified of this emotional bind? Based on my conversations, love is a word associated with entitlement, obligation and entwinment. People don't want to feel they have no options left. Relax. Love is not a sentencing to death.
"When you are in love, you don't want to wake up because reality is better than your dreams." -Dr. Seuss
Maybe, some folks hate their own reality from a day to day basis, they don't want to challenge the thought of love because it doesn't feel real. Maybe they only associate love with fairy tales, and lets face it, no ones life is an actual fantastical romance and they don't want to be played by their own mind.
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies" -Aristotle
Perhaps the thought of being exactly like someone else is overwhelming. How many of us can say we are an exact replica of someone else? A predetermined course between two people, or for better words fate, is real. "An event or course of events that will inevitably happen in the future or the supposed force of power that predetermines events." Maybe some people can't accept the thought of ending up with someone with out having control over their destiny; if it was meant to be, it will happen.
"Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired" -Robert Frost
Could it be that people avoid love because they don't want it to be a fake emotion of the moment? Some people want to be loved so bad, they will do anything to find it, even if its with the wrong person. Surely that will end in misery because the feeling wasn't real to begin with and fate was cheated.
"But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love her forever." -Robert Burns
Forever. Gosh, that's a scary word. Maybe the thought of being tied down to just one person isn't acceptable. They're scared to settle because no one truly knows what the future holds.
Or maybe they feel that the emotion they express to another may be taken out of context. Lets face it, not everyone has a sane mind.


Grasping the emotion of knowing another human being has genuine feelings for them may be difficult  and they are scared away because they have never felt a connection that strong before. They are unsure how to run with this new affection.

"It's so easy,To think about love, To talk about love, To wish for love, But it's not always easy,To recognize love, Even when we hold it, In our hands. -Jaka