Guest Post by All You Need Contributor Dave Ursillo

For many youthful years I was desperate for love. It was a deficit in my life, like a hole in my heart that was in dire need of mending. I felt incomplete without it; incapable and completely without direction.

This is the ol’ guise that we’re all so familiar with: a very young and immature understanding of romantic love, reinforced by idea that we are — apparently by our nature — unwhole and alone, and that the most important goal in life is to discover that one soul-mate in this world who may finally and perfectly complete us.

“Miles away from reality,” we say to ourselves as we grow older.

Now 26 years old, I’ve certainly found myself saying this to myself for years. But, the crazy part? This Disney movie “happily ever after” idea of romance that gets drilled into us before we can even walk or talk is, actually, much closer to the target than you might think.

Ode to the Secretly Sex-Crazed Computer Geeks

In the last three odd years of my self-employment since diving into this crazy world of social media and blogging, romantic love seems to be a common topic that comes up time and time again.

Either the stereotype of secretly sex-crazed computer geeks rings true, or, it’s just that love, sex and romance remain a natural curiosity within niche circles of the blogosphere — just as they would among any group of people.

The curiosity that swirls around others’ love-lives becomes even more sharply piqued when we consider the common style of personal openness, sharing life-lessons and transparent storytelling in the writing and videoblogging that we share with one another.

Simply put, and just as in life, love is always at the front and center of human attention.

I mention this backdrop specifically because, as I have found personally, the further I have gone along into opening up, sharing my story and meeting new people, the more I find myself being asked, “So, why don’t you have a girlfriend?”

I take it as a complement, of course: apparently my semi-public persona (like, extraordinary emphasis on the “semi” portion of that statement) makes me appear to be relatively normal — and capable of having a relatively normal girlfriend. Booya!

And although I take the question as a complement, I get thoroughly annoying at having to answer it — because people have often already drawn some conclusion about what the answer could be.

They reckon that I’ve been eternally-jaded in some long, drawn out, heartbreaking story, or that I must have some secret weirdness or repulsive behavior that they can’t see from behind the computer screen. Incessant nose-picking perhaps? Some undiagnosed Silence of the Lambs style personality disorder? No. I am, in fact, just as cool and suave as the Johnny Cash meets Clint Eastwood love-child that I appear to be.

The truth is that everything changed once I began to see love all around me: not a fleeting moment or feeling; not a desperate deficit that I needed to fill with the title of “girlfriend” or “wife” or “partner” or “lover” or “one-and-only” or “soul-mate”; not as a hole in my heart that needed to be mended.

Once I began to change the way I lived my life, the ways that I saw love changed — evolving in brilliant, liberating ways.

I began to give love in the work that I do, and in the very ways that I live. When I write, I love. When I speak, I love. When I meet new people at conferences or set up a Skype date with a digital friend just to catch up and offer my help to them, I love.

I see it in the faces of strangers everywhere I turn. I see it etched in the creases and wrinkles of people I pass on the street — entire lifetimes of joy and sorrow, of love and laughter. I reap it in every smile. I hope to cultivate it from every frown.

I feel so much love around me always, that life itself has become my very soul-mate.

And, the feeling is ten-fold when my thoughts and deeds and creative expression each vibrate with a devout sense of meaning, purpose and fulfillment.

Remember that “very young and immature understanding of love” that we discussed above? The truth is that we are not unwhole and alone without a soul-mate, but that we will feel just as desperate and incomplete if we do not give love, liberally and everywhere we turn.

I believe this is our most basic human nature that longs to be fulfilled.

No, the soul-mate is not the end-goal. It’s a life of pure love that is: the expression of love in kindness; the embodiment of love in selfless giving; the cultivation and sharing of love with strangers, family, friends and, yes!, even the “special someones” in our lives that we never want to be without.

Maybe, just maybe, if we spend a little bit more time investing our attention, our energy, and every wishful and whimsical dream of romance into becoming a devout soldier of love — dedicating every important facet of how we live to love itself, every day — that the rest will just begin to quietly fall into simple, perfect place.

All You Need Contributor: Dave Ursillo

Dave Ursillo is a former politico turned alternative leadership writer and speaker. Through his book Lead Without Followers and blog DaveUrsillo.com, Dave teaches men and women how to become leaders in any walk of life by discovering a personal and profound sense of inner leadership. You can also follow him on Twitter @daveursillo.

Song: Tell Me Baby by Red Hot Chili Peppers

photo credit: Jenny Kristina Nilsson via photopin cc

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