Do you love life?

Yes I do. I’ve had some ‘ups and downs’ but really I’m having a great life. Even the bad things weren’t all bad and good came from them. My parents both died well before they should have but they were great people who for the time they had with me, did a great job and left me with good values and feeling very loved. Some nasty things happened to me in my youth, but I’ve learned from them and more importantly, I’ve survived and I’m not beaten.

I had a bad marriage, but I now have three incredible children. They are happy, funny, intelligent, kind and healthy people. Sure they’ve done things that have had me tearing my hair out but so they should. They’re out there living their lives and travelling on their life road.

I have a brilliant husband. I thank my lucky stars every day for having him in my life. Smart, funny, caring and kind and damn sexy… my married life is GOOD!

I work way too hard. However, I work way too hard at a job that I actually do love. I get shitty about the amount of work sometimes but there are so many people in a queue behind me who won’t ever get the job I have. I know the work I do is valued by my bosses and my students. They could pay me more but far out, I’m off to Canada in a couple of months and they’re paying! My job has a lot of perks.

I get to travel on occasions, I have a nice house (not a flash house), I have money in the bank. I’m healthy. I’m still learning every day.

Life is good. I love it and I hope I have a lot more of it to come. I just need to spend more time reflecting on how good it is!

I don’t love life and I don’t hate life. Life, to me, just is. No more, no less. It’s simply everything I know – I don’t know the alternative, if there even is one, so I find it hard to have any feelings about life. I can not define life. I simply is as it always has been.

Even though I do believe life is incredible and something to be appreciated, I can’t condemn someone for not being able to maintain a sense of wonder about it. Life can also be very difficult.

Personally, I adore life. It’s the hard times I went through that have left me so excited about what I have now, which is really quite good. However, during those hard times, I wasn’t quite so fond.

Usually. Right now it’s kind of difficult but I suppose this too shall pass

Yes, very much. Years ago, after a life of close calls, I came as close as one can to dying and decided soon after to do as many of the things I had been dreaming of during a domestic 20-year stint of doing nothing but working, watching TV and sleeping. I began a process that included divorce, a change in attitude toward work, change of friends, regular trips to the gym, furthered my education in fields that will probably never make me any money, and began to travel again. I dumped a lot of responsibilities originally not my own, learned to say no, vowed to conquer fear and live life to its fullest, and then I released myself into the wild. I learned to walk away from toxic people and keep them out of my life. Some of these relationships were more than 30 years old. It wasn’t easy.

I have never regretted it. Other than some evident worrisome memory loss as to the properties of OTC painkillers on this site that have recently proven to be extremely embarrassing to me as a nurse, I’m happy as hell.

Yes

I love being alive, but I can’t stand humanity. I’d be happy to exist alone or with a few select people.

No, I am not life’s greatest fan. In fact I see no point at all, but…..

If I could start by parsing your question a little bit, I don’t get the impression that this is about “love” in the sense of ” to derive pleasure from”, in the way that I “love” pizza. That’s a self-serving parody of love that depends on how well things conform to my agenda. If you were to apply that standard of “love” to human relationships, so that your love for someone depends on how well they serve your needs, that would be clinical narcissism.

I think love has to begin with radical acceptance. Instead of demanding that things conform to your vision, love requires that you embrace things as they are. This is hard, because it means letting go of ego and the opinions and preferences that serve it, and backing off on the impulse to control.

There’s something to what you say about love being intertwined with giving. For me, the “giving” means giving the freedom to be what it is, and appreciating it on its own terms. That’s how I understand loving life.

I do, finally. I’ve received many undeserved second chances at life, and I am grateful for them.

I hate life. I hate the world around me, most of the people in it and my life. I hate who I am.

Sheesh. I find that really disturbing. If you don’t like who you are, maybe you should change.

I used to hate myself too @Headhurts. Still many things I don’t like. But then I discovered that one main difference between humans and animals is that humans can change themselves into something other than they are. Animals can’t do that. Neither can rocks.

The hardest part of changing was the point where I came to realize that I didn’t like myself. Same spot you’re in right now. But consider that change is impossible without first coming to the realization. The fact you acknowledge that you don’t like yourself means that you are actually changing who you are, even if you don’t realize it. The fact you acknowledge that you don’t like the world around you, or the people in your life, means that you are changing that as well.

I’ve had to walk away from many habits (world around me), and many people (family/friends). I changed them for people that I do like. That made the world around me a better place automatically.

Sounds like you’re on your way my friend.

From one perspective, I agree that this phenomenon exists is kind of mind blowing. From another, that “it is what is.”

I’ve spent a lot of time (almost 20 years) hating life and wishing like crazy that I was dead. I even got off essential medicine to make that happen. The odd thing is after all that willfulness, I’m still here. I would add to that a separate observation that after all the abuse people do to themselves, they mostly still manage to stick around. Experiencing that made me realize that something else apart from me and my will is driving the bus. That is interesting. Secondly, once I really let go of trying to stick around, I somehow came to realize that the point of all this is to suffer—as in the Buddha’s “life is suffering” dictum. With that understanding, suddenly all the angst gives way to laughter like the punchline of a good joke. Somehow most all of us start out handicapped by a misguided belief in who or what we are, so we suffer and/or live in a bit of delusion until/unless we figure out that there’s at least one layer of consciousness behind our conventional sense of identity.

It’s like when Homer Simpson gets his arm stuck in the vending machine. Everybody tries to help free him without success until someone finally suggests that he let go of the snack.

There’s an old quote from Rumi(?) that’s repeated elsewhere. “Die before you die.” I think it speaks to this as well.

I’m neutral about this. I don’t love nor hate life in absolute terms, but at certain times it is either one or the other. Love to me is a variable term as well. I only love life when I have something to be motivated about, and I hate life when I’m not motivated about anything.

@Paradox25 Well, that’s not a paradox at all. I’m ashamed of you.

@Espiritus_Corvus !?

@Paradox25 Your name.

Yes. I would never have thought to see the day for an all German Football Champions League final in London.