Falling In Love

Recently, I fell in Love!

I fell in Love with Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, Eddie Kendricks and Mary Wells.

Again!

I loved them when I was young. They were my idols. I knew all the words to almost all their songs; my sister and I would perform spontaneous duets.

I watched old clips of their live performances on YouTube, singing and performing their greatest hits while in their prime. I saw the world premier of “Stop – In the Name of Love’, “Oooh, Baby, Baby” and “Nowhere to Run”, among many others, for hours.

Thank God for YouTube.

I had no idea how great they were until I watched those videos. I used to listen to their records while looking at their album covers, imagining I was watching them perform.

As Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell once sang, “Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing,

Baby.”

What moved me was their Love for what they did and their obvious commitment to excellence. Their performances were stunning!

They were the picture of confidence. They overflowed with charisma. Their vocal quality and technique were beyond reproach.

Smokey owned the room with elegance and care. He owned the camera, the audience, the song, the stage and the Miracles. Diana never stopped smiling. I could hear her smile with every syllable. She played with us and told stories as if she lived them.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t.

But there was much more to them than even that.

Those performers appeared to be transparent vessels of their craft, a conduit of excellence with no concern for anything other than sharing their Love for what they were doing with us.

They looked like there was no other place they’d rather be. And the more they Loved what they were doing the more we Loved them.

Speaking for myself, I felt like they reached into a higher realm of existence and with their performances, showed me what that higher realm looked, felt and sounded like.

They lifted me up. How could I not Love them for that?

To me, greatness and excellence – in any arena – seem to have a common theme: they exhibit and bring forth the presence of Love.

The athlete, the singer, the writer and the architect Love what they do so much they can’t help but constantly raise their standards, caring for what they do the way most of us care for our children – sometimes more.

Their Love for what they do gets all over me and I Love it!

Whenever I have an opportunity to see or experience excellence I’m interested even if I don’t know what it’s about.

I don’t know if philosophers or great thinkers throughout time have expressed what I’m about to say but here’s what I think: I think it’s impossible to be great at something without Loving it. I think we Love greatness and excellence because of the Love expressed, not because of the greatness or the excellence.

And we want the Love!

The experience of Love is such a relatively rare occurrence in a world permeated with doubt, fear and cynicism. Survival seems to trump Love.

What a shame.

I suggest we trump Survival with Love.

I suggest we look at the Love already surrounding us. Let’s look at what others Love and honor them for it. Let’s see what we Love and get lost in it. Let’s share what we Love with others so they get to experience Love and be inspired to do the same.

It’s been said that if you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours. Well, the same can be said about Love: if you see someone who doesn’t Love their life, share what you Love about your life with them.

Like a smile, the more Love we give the more Love there is to go around.

You know what “they” say – what goes around, comes around.

What do you want coming back to you?