some things i know about love

according to Naval Ravikant, the 3 most important decisions in your life are:

1. what you do

2. where you live

3. who you’re with

i’d agree, with a note that the 3rd one has been the biggest for me by far.

that’s why this past weekend, i asked my best friend, my crush, & the most beautiful woman i know to marry me.

all 3 of them said no.

bad joke lol.

Emma is all of those things +more, & it’s been that way since we first started dating 8 years ago. i couldn’t be happier to call her my (future) wife.

usually, i don’t like to give advice on love because nobody can know more about a relationship than the people in it — & even if they did, the best advice for me might be the worst advice for you.

but given that we just hit a pretty big milestone, i’ll break my own rule today.

here are 22 things (i think) i know about love:

1. the secret to a happy relationship is 2 happy people.

2. the happiest relationships i know are usually just 2 best friends who also happen to be attracted to each other.

3. physical attraction matters more than people admit, but it’s also true that it matters less & less over time.

4. your partner should make you feel perfectly happy with who you are right now, but at the same time make you strive to be better for them. it doesn’t make sense but trust me on this.

5. any 2 people can get along when times are good. the real test of a relationship is how you act when times are bad.

6. in the bad times, remember that it’s never you vs them. it’s both of you vs the problem. you’re called partners for a reason. same team, always.

7. you’re not mad at your partner. you love your partner, & you’re just mad that they’re the only person in the world who could cross a boundary & still have you wanting to be close to them. it’s that contradiction (push/pull) that makes you feel mad.

8. people who say relationships are hard are either (a) full of shit, or (b) in relationships that i wouldn’t want. good relationships are the easiest thing in the world & make your life better in every single way AS LONG AS both of you are 100% honest & always say exactly what you think (note: *how* you say those things still matters a lot).

9. the easiest way to solve every disagreement is to be brutally honest & separate the person from what they did. for example, instead of ‘you’re always so messy!’ (personal insult), you can say ‘it kinda pisses me off when you leave dishes in the sink’ (action-based observation).

10. i never really understood the type of love Hollywood shows, with all those big highs & lows, ‘having butterflies,’ etc. — for me, love feels more like sitting around a campfire. there’s a sense of calm that comes from knowing you could lose everything else in the world & still feel like you have enough.

11. that being said, love is more of an action than a feeling. it’s a million little moments stacking up over a long time that show someone is there for you.

12. an easy way to measure love is by asking how much you would sacrifice for something. like, i would run into a burning building & give my life for Emma with no hesitation. i would give maybe 50 bucks for my buddy Lippa (lol that’s a joke love you buddy). you get the point though.

13. being able to laugh at anything & just play like a kid with someone in all situations is super important. humour is like a green tree that can bend in a storm. taking everything seriously is like a dry tree that can only snap.

14. the best relationships are completely unequal in ways that only have to make sense for the people within them. still, both partners get more out of a good relationship overall than what they put in.

15. i heard an idea that there are 2 types of relationships:
    cornerstone = you get together when you’re still growing up/finding yourself & do it together (like Emma & i stumbled into when we were 17), OR
    capstone = you’ve done a lot of growing up already & meet someone ‘at the top of the mountain’ whose life/values align with your own.

16. from what i’ve seen, relationships that fail usually start as cornerstones & end when they grow apart instead of growing together.

17. when you get into a deep relationship with someone, you’re also getting into a deep relationship with their family & friends. social circles merge way more than you’d expect (& that’s actually one of the coolest perks of being in a relationship).

18. that being said, there’s a sweet spot for how much your social circles ‘should’ merge. ideally, you want a mix of shared friendships with your partner (both of you + someone), separate friendships without them (just you + a friend), & if possible, a close relationship with each other’s families.

19. the reason people stay in bad relationships OR stay out of relationships to begin with is poor self-esteem. if deep down you feel like you ‘don’t deserve love’ or that you’re short of some fake checklist of things people in healthy relationships ‘need’ to have, you’ll settle for less than you deserve. you’ll believe that there are people who are ‘ready’ & ‘not ready’ for love.

20. the reason that belief is so hard to shake is because it’s partially true. it sounds corny, but you need to love yourself first. that’s all being ‘ready’ is.

21. so what does ‘loving yourself’ look like?
    (1) REAL confidence, which comes from evidence, which comes from doing things that prove to yourself that you are who you say you are. if you had a friend who said they would do stuff, but they never did, you wouldn’t trust them. why would your relationship with yourself be any different?
    (2) honesty, with yourself & others 100% of the time. lying is like a cancer that fucks up every relationship in your life & only grows over time. never lie with both words & actions, to both yourself & others.

    (3) core values, knowing what you want & what you’re not willing to compromise for. these can/will change over time, but the big ones tend to stay the same.

22. fundamentally, people just want to feel seen. that’s why they say ‘happiness is only real when shared.’ having a life partner is having someone who truly sees you — who you can share your happiness with — every single day.

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some things i learned

1. this is the best time to be alive, ever.

   

2. people love narcissists, until they don’t
   ‘in a study of groups that met regularly for several months, the people who scored highest on narcissism were at first the most popular people in the group. by the end of several months, they were the least popular.’
   ~ Rob Henderson

3. a good life = independence + purpose
   independence in this context means autonomy — having the ability + control to do whatever you want.
   purpose in this context means direction — having somewhere to channel that autonomy (i.e. a reason to get out of bed in the morning).

cool stuff i found

1. a must-do if you’re ever in Toronto
   on our mini engagement trip this weekend, Emma & i visited Vettä Nordic Spa, located ~1 hour outside of the city. it’s tucked into a quiet forest, & they have a bunch of different saunas, hot tubs, cold plunges, steam rooms, hot stone beds, & relaxation areas. plus, there’s a great restaurant.
   i can’t recommend it enough.

   

2. a guy whose sketchbook pages could be hung in a museum
   i recently came across the work of Pep Carrió, & i’m a big fan.
   it’s easy to see why:

   

3. a simple way to measure your life
   i upgraded my life calculator last week, & people are loving the results so far. just answer 10 survey questions, & it gives you a detailed report of the most valuable thing in the world:

   

use it for free

that’s all for today!

i hope it’s ok that i didn’t send an email last week. there were a lot of other things on my mind, haha.

thank you for always being here though.

i hope you enjoy reading these as much as i enjoy writing them for you.

go make yourself proud this week.

~ liam (:

PS - is there anything you want me to write about? any questions for me? i love hearing from you, so reply to this email & i’ll get back to you asap!