A lovely list of advice...

As usual, this is from my favorite list-making site, Thought Catalog.
25 ways to make your life better immediately. 
I like the majority of them, but #25 is especially true: Love Hard. Go out and try to love as hard as you can.

But to this, I also want to add -- allow yourself to be loved hard. I feel like loving hard can be a little freaky to the people around you, especially when you aren't used to it. I know that it is much easier for me to actively love hard than to accept being loved hard.  It's scary. And it's hard to overcome the "I don't deserve this/to be happy" slump that is easy to fall into.

I think it can be very difficult to be loved hard without thinking that there are a slew of other social obligations that are associated with it. This is definitely true for me because it is hard for me to separate friends from lovers. This may be because I didn't attend public school early on and didn't interact much with a non-related, same-age cohort until sophomore year of highschool, where the waters were already heavily muddied with hormones. So I tend to rely a lot on the internet (totally unmuddled, right?) to try and help me figure out social context... which can be confusing, because some stuff out there doesn't even make intuitive sense.

Plus, I think there is a complicated social dance around friendship and love and the idea that somehow something that doesn't turn into a romantic love isn't as "worthy." This idea that  romantic love trumps platonic love in terms of intensity is simply myopic.  


But do it! Let yourself be loved hard by everyone in your life. And love the people in your life so, so hard.

Here are some hyena pictures to portray this. Side note: I friggin' love spotted hyenas. Their social order is incredibly complex, which makes their evolutionary history really alluring. Plus, they are total badasses and uniquely gorgeous. If anything can say "hard love/love hard" it's hyenas.

(source)

 Hanging with a lion -- still cool. (source)