Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

by Cheryl Strayed

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

This is one of the most painful lessons I’ve learned in my life, and also one of the most important ones. The first time I truly realized that you cannot convince people to love you is when I was a child and I realized that my father wasn’t going to be the kind of father every child deserves. He wasn’t going to love me and my siblings the way we all want fathers to love their children. To accept that as true—and to understand it was not my fault and there was nothing I could do to change it or make him love me better—was a powerfully life-altering experience. As painful as it was, it was also liberating. When you let go of the people who don’t love you well, you open yourself up to finding the people who will. You are so worthy of that love.