dear john...

Just sharing some thoughts and lessons I learned from Nicholas Sparks' heart-warming novel...

Dear John:

What does true love mean?

Such a simple question, yet, I myself, am finding a hard time defining it. If this question was asked a decade ago, I might have answered the way I would have replied on a “slum book” – the kind of stuff that teenagers pass around and keep, to be able to know who might have a crush on them.

For me, true love means, having to love the other person with the best that you could give and not asking for something in return. True love means exhausting all your efforts to show how much you love the other person, thinking first of making that other person happy even if you are hurting and enduring the moments that you are not around him. And at the end of the day, you still find yourself content with the word knowing that you have helped put a smile on someone else’s face.

They say there is one true love that is meant for you. You do not need to look for it, because it will come your way. In your lifetime, there is that one person that you are entitled to love and cherish; however, it doesn’t always mean that you can spend your forever with him. True love is the sister of “sacrifice”, because when you love, you do not only embrace happiness, but you also feel pain, you understand sadness, you anticipate hardship, you learn from your mistakes. And from those mistakes, you grow stronger and you sacrifice for the good of the other because you do not only think about yourself, as long as you would willingly give what’s remained in your heart.