Love. It can, and most likely will be the best feeling that you will ever experience. The word, however, is often over-used. We do not appreciate the word for what it means. According to Dictionary.com, the word ‘love’ means “a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.” We often will use this word to describe how we have taken a liking to a specific item, or maybe even a song. In this day and age, your typical teen will assume that they are feeling love. For example, maybe they ‘love’ their favorite song, or even ‘love’ pizza. Everybody has felt love, whether it be love for their mom, or love for their significant other, or maybe even their kid.

As I walk through the halls of Penta Career Center, I constantly see happy couples. These kids are happy because they feel infatuation, which is often referred to as ‘love’, towards each other. Everybody deserves love, no matter your sexual preference, or your gender. Your family will always love you, no matter how badly you’ve treated them, or how badly people may have rejected you in the past. You will always have family; not to mention friends.

Throughout the few years that I have been socially coherent, I’ve noticed people of many ages and genders who have used the word ‘love’ in a careless manner. When I see people text, I often see them tell a friend ‘I love you.’ I do not think they fully mean this, because they have not really experienced affection for other people of their age. I see these kids in between class, where they hug innocuously. I feel as if they are deriding the word ‘love.’

Love is more than raw physicality and it has nothing to do with skin or the bone structure of a body. I typically find kids these days dwelling on whether they should ask a girl out because of whom she is on the inside, or just because of the way she looks. Every time I see people judging others because of their body, as opposed to whom that person really is, it makes me lose faith in humanity. I have had best-friends who have been treated as if they should have never existed in their relationships, only because their significant other judged on behalf of their looks, and their level of social acceptance.

What I’m getting to is the word ‘love’ isn’t typically used for its literal meaning in today’s society. I feel as if people should come to the understanding of the word ‘love.’ It is too often used as an instant reply. For example, when going to bed, when some people receive a text, they sometimes will say something along the lines of ‘Night, love you!’ This is extremely disappointing because they do not necessarily mean it. It’s even more disappointing when they believe the word, and are completely clueless to the meaning.