I love you, bro

To start the year, I tried a new 21 day challenge. Every time I got annoyed with someone, especially a stranger, I looked directly at them and said: “I love you.”

I didn’t say it out loud – that would be too much – instead, with full conviction, I looked directly at them and said it in my mind. It was painful.

Why…?

I needed to know if it’s possible to still feel anger or hate towards someone after you say that you love them. And I need a new test in discomfort. Love isn’t a word I like to throw around.

But I was about to start throwing the L word around like it was going out of style. Would my love turn out to be a non-renewable, and I’d have none left in me? Or a muscle that grows with use?

So for 21 days – 15 of which I rode on the very cramped, broken and always infuriating MTA system – I went for it.

Day 1

In the train, a lady pushed me. Closing my eyes and saying I love you hurt. Like I was fighting every ounce of my primal being, going against my evolution.

At the end

of day one, I felt like a weirdo trying to explain the challenge to a friend. Not even sure why I’m doing it.

An experiment in discomfort? Idk.

Day 2

Caught myself looking at a homeless person in disgust. Replaced it with I love you, and feel nothing but sympathy for him.

The first days felt stupid, and I kept forgetting to do it. Then when I remembered, I started to realize how often I felt moments of annoyance with strangers: the rude cashier, the dude invading my space, the thousand other invisible crimes committed by others.

The deep anger was an alien hijacking my emotions. And it wasn’t until this challenge that I learned something about myself:

How often tiny, little things annoy me.

It became a mindfulness exercise, remembering to say I love you to every person that I truly didn’t.

Without realizing it, those annoyances were drops in a bucket that added up to a very bad day. Like Chinese water torture, no single taste of anger caused psychic stress, but by end of day, the cumulative stress is exhausting.

Within a week or so, it became second nature. As soon as I felt the heat rising, I cut it off with a quick I love you. I became less reactive and more curious about the person. What deep pain or insecurity is triggering their outburst? What demons are they battling that are making them so inconsiderate?

By the end of week two I got lazy. I didn’t stop saying I love you, I just stopped getting annoyed with strangers. It was easier to not react than to spend all of that energy on the experiment.

Before I knew it, this became mindfulness experiment. A quieting of the monkey brain, being less reactive in the era of triggering.

I’ll end this post in style, with an 80’s Power Ballad:

I’m going to take a little time
A little time to look around me
I’ve got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found me

I want to know what love is
I want you to show me
I want to feel what love is
I know you can show me

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*And no, I didn’t drain my love supply. I subscribe to the Ancient Greek concept of the Four Loves, that each person has four distinctly different loves that they can experience. That we must fill all four chambers to feel content with life.

Their Four Loves are love of family, friends, romantic love and charitable love. While I’m not sure where love of strangers fits in that picture, I did feel more generous. Maybe charitable? Maybe charity is more than giving time and money, but also about opening your heart to strangers.