The Quiet Work of Liking Each Other

There are certain words we toss around as if they grow on trees. Love is one of them. We speak it so casually—I love him, I love her, I love them but…

And there it is, that small and tremulous word trailing behind like a sickly leaf. But.

Whenever someone brings me that sentence, I always ask the same thing: “That’s fine, but do you like them?”

You’d be surprised at the stillness that follows. The long pause. The little frown of a mind trying to sort out rooms in a house they’ve lived in for years yet never explored.

Love, the way we bandy it about, is simply too large for our small human hands. It’s like trying to wrap our fingers around a cloud, or hold the entire ocean in a single jar. The kind of love people long for—the vast, borderless kind—is not ours to manufacture or manage. That belongs to something far greater than the business of two flawed human beings trying their best. That is the domain of the holy, however you choose to understand that word.

When we’re born, the first faces we see become our entire cosmos. A parent’s arms are the first universe we inhabit. Their gaze, their warmth—those feel like the laws of nature themselves. In those early years, love wears no conditions. It is a room without locks, a sky without storms. As infants, we are loved the way only the divine can love: wholly, without earning, without question. But then we grow.

We wander out into the world with that early blueprint still in our pockets, folded neatly like a map. We look for someone who will love us the same way: without boundary, without judgment, without failure. And then we hand that impossible expectation to another human being—someone with their own wounds, their own blind corners, someone who wakes up grumpy or afraid or overwhelmed just like we do—and we say, Here, hold this. Don’t drop it. And when they do—as they surely will, being human—we feel betrayed. Heartbroken. Confused. We think something has gone wrong, when in truth, nothing has gone wrong at all.

We simply asked another person to play the role of God.

It’s no wonder so many hearts break under the weight of that misunderstanding. No wonder marriages fall apart, friendships dissolve, children grow up resentful.

We have been worshiping at the wrong altar.

So let’s put the word love away for a minute. It’s too slippery. It carries too many myths and too many mistaken hopes.

Let’s talk about something we overlook, something quieter and more durable.

Let’s talk about liking each other.

It’s astonishing, really, how little value people place on liking—the gentle everyday affection, the enjoyment of someone’s company, the ease of being near them without feeling drained or diminished. I hear parents say, “Oh, I love my teenagers, but I don’t like them right now.”

Couples say, “I love my spouse, but we don’t get along.”

Friends whisper the same in different variations.

And we behave as though this is normal, as though the absence of liking can be patched over with grand declarations of love.

But liking—simple liking—is the bedrock of every relationship that survives its winters.

It’s a choice you renew daily, like tending a garden: pulling the weeds, watering the roots, giving each other light when the world feels dark.

And here is the quiet, inconvenient truth:

You cannot truly love someone you don’t like. Not in a way that will last.

But if you learn to like someone—genuinely like them, with patience and curiosity—love blooms on its own, as naturally as spring following the frost.

This is humble work. Slow work.

It asks you to notice the good in people, to cultivate kindness, to soften the sharp edges that rise in you. It asks you to be likable yourself—not perfect, not saintly, just someone who listens, apologizes, laughs gently, forgives easily.

Liking is the art of meeting each other halfway.

Liking is where grace grows.

So start there.

Like your children. Not just in the flashes when they’re easy, but in the long stretches when they’re not.

Like your partner. Learn the contours of their soul the way you once learned the shape of their face.

Like your parents, your friends, the stranger who shares your morning sunlight.

And—perhaps the most difficult of all—learn to like yourself.

Place your trust in that simple devotion. Let love be the wind that moves through the world in its own time, not the burden you try to wrangle into place.

Because when you like someone—actively, intentionally, with your whole awake heart—love follows. Not the dramatic, cinematic kind, but the kind that stays.

The kind that endures.

The kind that doesn’t shatter under the weight of human imperfection.

The other way around?

Well, we’ve tried that for centuries, and we know how that story ends.

So begin with liking.

Begin small.

Begin today.

It’s simple, yes—simple in the way planting a seed is simple.

You tuck it in the soil, cover it gently, water it with faith. And long before you expect it, something green begins to rise.

Hari Om Tat Sat