We tend to think of love as an uncontrollable feeling that comes over us. Although this overwhelming feeling does happen, real love and love that is sustained is always a choice: You choose to be open to someone, you choose to accept them, and that openness and acceptance allows love to flow. This process is often unconscious, so we often don’t realize we are choosing to accept someone when it’s happening. But that choice to accept someone is what precedes love. It happens unconsciously all the time, and it can happen more consciously too.

Some people are easier to love than others, and they are the ones, therefore, who experience a lot of love. They experience it both within themselves and coming to them from others. What is their secret? Amazing good looks? No. Stunning personalities? No. Money and power? No. Their secret is none of the things we assume will make us more lovable. Their secret is that they love, and by that I mean, they accept others the way they are. Isn’t that when you feel loved—when you feel accepted rather than judged, which is the usual way egos interact with each other?