Where is all the love?

Where is all the love?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about love. Actually, I’ve been doing that my whole life. Love runs like a thread through my life, through my friendships, my family, my relationships, my work and now also through LJUBAV.Rosa, my new passion project.

A while ago, I wrote about how LJUBAV means much more to me than simply the Yugoslav word for love. It is family. Roots. Life force. It is that invisible something that connects people to one another. And I have come to understand that love does not mean giving yourself away without limits. Sometimes love is also a no.
A boundary. Walking away. Choosing yourself.

And this year brought another realization with it: Sometimes we first have to completely lose ourselves in music, desert, tears, silence and that indescribable feeling of freedom to realize just how deeply we have actually arrived within ourselves. That intuition can be a compass. That truth can hurt. And that we can still choose not to become hard because of it. Maybe that is why another question has been occupying my mind lately:

Where is all the love? Not only romantic love. Human love.

Where is all the love?

Sometimes I look around and genuinely wonder when we started accepting so many things as normal that do not feel normal to me at all.

That women think about wearing shorts underneath their dresses — not because they want to, but because some stranger might decide that their privacy matters less than his entertainment.

That we ask our girlfriends: “Please let me know when you get home.” A sentence filled with love. And at the same time, a sentence that often carries a quiet fear within it. Perhaps one sign of true social freedom would be reaching a point where we send that message purely out of affection — and no longer out of concern.

I see a world in which people are still treated differently because of their gender, the color of their skin, where they come from or their social status. A world in which some people feel superior to others simply because they happened to be born in a certain place. Because their parents or grandparents made money. Because their car carries a certain logo, their bag carries a certain name or their bank account gives them the feeling that they are somehow worth more.

And yet, to me, money is one of the cheapest forms of wealth.

You can have an enormous amount of money and still be incredibly poor inside. To me, true wealth looks very different.

Health.
Freedom.
Time.
People you can trust.
A body you feel at home in.
A peaceful mind.
A conscience that allows you to sleep at night.
Friends who are genuinely happy for you.
A family — biological or chosen — where you never have to explain why you simply need a hug.
Peace.
And love.

When did we forget how to be human?

At the same time, we live in an age in which we can theoretically know more than any generation before us. Information is only a few clicks away. And yet sometimes it seems easier to convince people of something than to get them to reconsider something they have already decided to believe.

Maybe because it is uncomfortable to admit:
I might have been wrong.
Maybe I was told something that wasn’t true.
Maybe I misjudged someone.
Maybe I was part of the problem while believing the entire time that I was part of the solution.

Truth can be uncomfortable. Not every truth is spectacular. There is not a huge conspiracy behind everything. And not everyone who claims to know “the truth” automatically possesses it. But people who expose genuine wrongdoing, ask uncomfortable questions or challenge powerful structures can pay a very high personal price for doing so. Because inconvenient facts sometimes bring light exactly where others would rather remain in the shadows.

And perhaps this is not only true for major social issues. Maybe the same thing applies to our own lives. Because it is easy to judge the world out there. It becomes much harder when we turn our attention inward.

How do I treat people I do not need anything from?
Can I genuinely celebrate someone else’s success?
Can I admit when I was wrong?
Can I take responsibility when I have hurt someone?
Can I sincerely apologize?
Do I live according to the same values I so naturally expect from everyone else?

Maybe this is exactly where humanity begins.

Being independent without becoming untouchable

One realization has been with me for quite some time: I never want to find myself in a position where I depend on another person in order to carry myself.

Not emotionally.
Not financially.
Not existentially.

I want to be able to stand on my own two feet. But even that is something I had to learn to understand in a more nuanced way. Because being independent does not mean never needing anyone. And independence does not mean that you are not allowed to trust anyone. Perhaps true freedom looks more like this:

I can stand on my own — and still allow myself to lean on you.
I do not need you in order to choose to stay with you.
I do not have to hold onto you so that you choose me.
I do not have to convince you.

And suddenly, closeness can become something entirely different.

A free choice.
Not a survival mechanism.
Not holding on.
Not begging.

Not: “Please see me.”
But: “How beautiful that you do.”

Maybe we are simply looking for love in the wrong places

Maybe love has not disappeared at all. Maybe we simply spend far too much time looking for it where it does not exist. We look for it in people who constantly make us question ourselves. While right beside us sits a friend who has walked through every high and every low with us for years.

We hope that one day someone will finally appreciate us. While our parents open the door with shining eyes every single time we come home.

We wait for that one grand gesture. When perhaps love is hiding in something as simple as:

“Did you get home safely?”
In a hand resting on our back.
In someone picking something up for us while shopping because they know we like it.
In a friend celebrating our success as if it were her own.
In someone telling us the truth even though they know we do not want to hear it right now.
In someone who not only respects our boundaries, but does not constantly try to test them in the first place.
In people who stay without us having to hold onto them.

Maybe the much more important question is therefore not:

Where is all the love?

But:

Where do I put mine?

Maybe we have to become the answer ourselves

The longer I think about it, the less I believe we can simply wait for “the world” to become more loving. Because who exactly is this world?

Us.
You.
Me.

The people we raise.
The people we work with.

The way we speak to the person serving us in a restaurant.
The way we talk about someone the moment they leave the room.
The way we react when a friend becomes more successful than we are.

Whether we help someone knowing we will never receive anything in return.
Whether we take responsibility when we have messed up.
Whether we can apologize.
Whether we can listen.
Whether we can allow another person to experience happiness without suddenly perceiving our own life as less valuable.

Maybe character reveals itself most clearly when nobody is watching.
And perhaps love reveals itself most clearly when there is absolutely nothing for us to gain in return.

Not every battle needs a war

Maybe my understanding of what it means to fight for something is changing, too. In the past, I probably would have thought: If something matters to you, you fight for it. Today, I think: Yes. But not always in the way I once believed.

Some things deserve our voice. Sometimes we have to become loud.
Sometimes we have to say very clearly: This far and not one millimeter further.

But sometimes the most powerful reaction is actually no immediate reaction at all.

Instead, taking a step back.
Breathing.
Observing.
Seeing what happens when we stop trying to control the situation.

People show us an incredible amount about themselves when we stop constantly explaining to them who we would like them to be.

Not everything needs to be judged immediately.
Not every apparent defeat truly is one.
Not every loss is actually a loss.
Not every closed door was meant for us.

Some of the worst experiences of my life taught me things years later that I could never have understood while I was living through them.

Maybe we do not have to understand every storm while we are still standing in the middle of it. Sometimes it is enough not to drown.

Values are not something we can demand only from others

I talk a lot about values.

Loyalty.
Truth.
Courage.
Compassion.
Generosity.
Respect.

But values are fairly worthless when they exist only as expectations we place on other people.

If I expect loyalty, I have to be loyal too.
If I demand honesty, I also have to be willing to speak uncomfortable truths.
If I want respect, I have to treat people with respect even when they have absolutely nothing to offer me.
If I want love, I have to ask myself how much love I am carrying into this world.

Even the centuries-old Christian concept of the seven deadly sins — pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth — does not have to be understood dogmatically or religiously for me to recognize very human warnings within it — and I truly do not want to sound as though I have wisdom all figured out. Here too, I am not only observing what is happening within myself but also what I see around me.

Perhaps at their core, these ideas have always been asking the same question: What am I allowing to guide me?

Fear?
Ego?
Greed?
Envy?
Or love?

Where has all the passion gone?

And then there is something else I keep wondering: Where has all the passion gone? And I do not only mean sexual passion.

I mean people who burn for something.
People who are excited.
Who call their friends and say: “You won’t believe what just happened!”

People whose eyes begin to light up when they talk about something they love.
People who try things even though there is every possibility they might fail spectacularly.
People who do not make every decision based on how it will look from the outside.

At the end of my life, I certainly do not want to look back at a perfectly curated collection of sensible decisions.

I want to be able to say:

Damn, what a ride!

I loved.
I laughed.
I cried.
I fell.
I got back up.
I went down the wrong path.
I changed my mind.
I was brave.
And sometimes I was afraid and did it anyway.

Because I believe one of the saddest ways for me to live would be a life filled with unlived possibilities. Filled with:

What if…?

And maybe this is the answer

Where is all the love?
It is still here.

In my friends.
In my family.
In my mom and my dad.
In the people who do not feel threatened by my light, but use it to light their own candle.
In people who lift one another up.
In strangers helping each other.
In a deep look that says: “I am here for you.” And you know that it is true.

In an honest conversation.
In a boundary.
In an apology.
In a hug.
In shared silence.
In music.
In movement.
In nature.
In a body that carries us through life every single day.
In us.

Maybe we simply have to stop directing all of our attention toward the people who withhold their love from us. And start noticing far more consciously just how much love already exists all around us.

Maybe we have to stop chasing people who need to be convinced. And start seeing the people more clearly who never needed convincing in the first place.

Stop hoping that breadcrumbs will eventually turn into a feast.

And instead make room at the table for people who bring something with them.

Not out of obligation.
But out of love.

And while I keep asking myself where all the love has gone, I am slowly realizing:

Maybe I do not have to find it at all.

Maybe I simply have to make sure that there is no less of it in the world because of me.

I cannot decide how other people choose to live.
But I can decide how I want to live.

I want to celebrate when my friends win.
I want to help when I can.
I want to love without abandoning myself in the process.
I want to set boundaries without closing my heart.
I want to use my voice.
I want to ask questions.
I want to be allowed to be wrong.
I want to learn.
I want to feel.
I never want to become so hurt that I eventually stop being soft myself.

And when the world sometimes really does look dark?

There is still one choice left to me.

I can make my own light brighter.

Maybe then we will see one another.

Like lighthouses in the darkness.
And find our way back to each other.

Let love guide you.
Choose the light.
Do not fear.

LJUBAV,
Rosa ♥️

---

WHERE IS ALL THE LOVE?

Where is all the love?
I asked the world
while looking at everything
that seemed to have forgotten
what love feels like.

I saw people measuring worth
in money they did not earn,
names they did not build,
borders they did not draw,
and bodies they did not choose.

I saw expensive things
worn by empty hearts.

And I wondered
when we started confusing
having more
with being more.

Where is the love?

In a world
where women sometimes think twice
before walking home alone.

Where text me when you get home
can be both
an expression of love
and an expression of fear.

Where people still have to fight
to be treated
simply as people.

Where truth can be inconvenient,
questions uncomfortable,
and looking away
so much easier
than looking within.

Where is the love?
I asked again.

Until I realized
I might have been asking
the wrong question.

Not:
Where is the love?
But:
Where do I put mine?

And suddenly
the answer changed.

I cannot control
how the world chooses to behave.

But I can choose
who I become inside it.

So I choose
to stand on my own feet
without building walls
around my heart.

I choose to be someone
others can lean on
without teaching them
to depend on me.

I choose to give
without turning kindness
into a hidden invoice.

To love
without abandoning myself.

To leave
when staying requires
betraying who I am.

To stop wishing
for breadcrumbs
to become a meal.

To stop watering places
where nothing wants to grow.

To stop persuading
what was never asking
to stay.

I will make space
for what comes freely.

For the friend
who cheers for my victories
as if they were her own.

For the arms
I never have to beg
to be held by.

For conversations
that do not need winners.

For people
whose presence feels like peace
instead of a puzzle.

Maybe love
was never gone.

Maybe I was looking for it
in places
that did not know
how to hold it.

So I will not dim my light
to make darkness comfortable.

I will not shrink
because my existence
makes someone question theirs.

I will not confuse
being calm
with being silent.

Sometimes love whispers.
Sometimes love walks away.
Sometimes love draws a boundary.

Sometimes love stands still,
breathes,
watches
and refuses to react.

And sometimes love
roars like a lion.

Not every fight needs noise.
Not every action
deserves my reaction.

There is power
in taking one step back
and letting truth
reveal itself.

There is peace
in realizing
that not everything
needs to be chased,
fixed
or forced.

Maybe the opposite of love
is not hate.

Maybe it is indifference.

So I refuse
to become indifferent.

I will care.
I will speak.
I will question.

I will defend
what I believe is right.

I will celebrate
other people’s light
without fearing
that it makes mine smaller.

I will try
even when failing
seems more likely
than winning.

Because love
does not guarantee
that I win.

But it can decide
who I become
when I lose.

And maybe
that is the victory.

To reach the end
without a life
filled with what ifs,
but one filled with:

Hell, what a ride.

To have loved.
To have dared.
To have fallen.
To have learned.

To have stood back up
without letting the fall
turn my heart into stone.

My hardest chapters
may one day reveal themselves
as my greatest teachers.

So I will not judge
every storm
while I am still standing
inside the rain.

I will breathe.
I will observe.
I will let things unfold.

I will trust
what does not need persuasion.

I will appreciate
what comes without chasing.

I will protect
what is sacred.

My body.
My mind.
My soul.
My faith.
My peace.
My people.
My light.

True union begins within.

And from there
I can meet another person
not as half
searching for completion,
but as whole
meeting whole.

Where is all the love?
Here.

In every person
who still chooses kindness
when cruelty would be easier.

In every hand
that reaches out
without asking
what it gets in return.

In every voice
that speaks
when silence would be safer.

In every boundary
that protects
without becoming a wall.

In every friend
who stays.

In every stranger
who helps.

In every person
who refuses
to become what hurt them.

And in me.

So if the world feels dark,
I will not spend my life
cursing the darkness.

I will become
a lighthouse.

Maybe someone
who is searching
will see me.

Maybe I will see them.

Maybe
that is how we find each other.

Let love guide you.
Choose the light.
Do not fear.

LJUBAV.

P.S.: If this blog post resonated with you, feel free to share it with someone you found yourself thinking about while reading it. Because sometimes it is enough simply to tell someone how much they mean to you. Spread LJUBAV.

And if you would like to read more along these lines, have a look through the “Mindset” section. I would also love to hear your own thoughts in the comments. Enjoy exploring, and thank you for being here!