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Is love all we really need?

Feb 14 05:14

Today is Valentine’s Day. The day we celebrate everlasting love, lust and chocolate (not necessarily in that order), the day we tell that person in our life who we love the most that they mean everything to us and we shower them with adorations (and maybe a gift or two).

Love is supposed to be one of the greatest things in life, but is it really? Are people only happy in pairs? Maybe all those generations before us had it right, maybe practicality and finding pleasure from other things in life, and not relying on romantic love to stimulate our happy meter, can be just as satisfying?

I’ve seen both sides when it comes to complexities of being in love. I’ve been in love so feverishly it felt like the best narcotic high imaginable, and I’ve been as single as the last man of Earth, knowing exactly what it means when they say one is the loneliest number that you‘ll ever do. And annoyingly, whenever I found myself single, it always felt so much worse, as if my disability compounded the feelings of loneliness, making me jones for love that much more. You always think you’re single because of your disability when you have a disability, as if it’s to blame.

But during those years of being single I experienced something amazing: I learned to love being single and elevated myself to a plane where I no longer hoped and wished for romantic love. Instead, I rediscovered my interests and passions; who I was. I got into cooking, begun to writing a screenplay, I rekindled friendships, and I began to see, to truly see, that finding true happiness in life didn’t necessarily need to come in the shape of a man who told me he loved me (although what girl would turn that down).

I think The Beatles had it wrong. Or maybe they were talking about a different kind of love. Sure “romantic” love it great, but it isn’t all we need. Many of us can carry on satisfying lives without romantic love. If you are lucky enough to snag that sticky dewy love, think of it as the icing on an already amazing cake that would’ve been just as tasty without it.

Do you think love is necessary for happiness?

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By Tiffiny Carlson

Tiffiny Carlson Disability buzz, travel, fashion and dating — fun things to amp up everyday wheeling life.

Tiffiny Carlson is freelance writer and writes the “SCI Life” column for New Mobility. She's also a C6 quad from a diving accident that occurred when she was 14 years old. A lifelong resident of Minneapolis, Tiffiny has been a writer in the disability community for over 10 years and writes for several publications and blogs, as well as her personal blog BeautyAbility. Her work has also appeared in mainstream publications such as Nerve.com and Playgirl.