Steinbeck on Falling in Love

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Love is such a deep, sublime and extraordinarily ordinary concept that sometimes we are left speechless when asked what love is, or how we know whether we love, or how love looks like; among many other equally important questions. My idea and understading of love has deepened as I have grown older and I continue to learn each day; love is not only all around us but inside us, you can love others but loving yourself is foundational to be able to fully love others. 
Throughout the years I have thoroughly enjoyed reading quotes, extracts and narratives about love, particularly the following by John Steinbeck. Beautifully narrated, this 1958 letter to his son warmed my heart and helped my understanding of love deepen; for many of us, loving means losing, at some point, we lose something: we lose the person we love, we lose ourselves, we love our shared dreams but Steinbeck said, "And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away."  
Nothing good gets away. We struggle, we force, we cry, we 'die.' Why? why force things which are not meant to be 'forever'? If it is meant to be, it will certainly be and love will flourish. People come into our lives for however long or short a period of time and that is alright; it was meant that way, it was meant that length. 
In the following letter, I have used bold to highlight those phrases that most deeply resonated with me. 
New York, November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Love,
Fa
What a beautiful, heartfelt and sincere letter; written more than 50 years ago and still so relevant and applicable nowadays and that is because love is the only constant we have in life, the driving force of absolutely everything. 

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