My Micro-MomentWhat is love? We all have our own fantasies about what love will be like when that train finally arrives at our station. As a Western culture, we view love as a pot of gold that only the luckiest among us can stumble upon, as something you only experience when the Prince takes you away on a noble horse, as legitimate only when you are “inside” it. . These fantasies don't do much for us in terms of promoting well-being, so I decided to re-evaluate my view of love. In an effort to redefine what love looks like for myself, I simply looked up the word. To my surprise, love does not have a very broad and comprehensive definition. It's actually defined literally in the Merriam Webster dictionary as an "intense feeling of deep affection." that's it. It's almost humorous to see how such a simple word has acquired such an inaccessible and illusory place in our minds. This idea is also widely taken up by Barbara Fredrickson in her book Love 2.0. Fredrickson combats the typical Westernized fairy tale view of love with his own theory, the idea of ​​the “positive resonance of micro-moments.” It's the idea that love is characterized by strong, positively charged moments that are shared between you and anyone else in your day. to everyday life. There are two conditions for the effectiveness of this theory; the first being that there must be a sense of internal and external security, the second being that there must be a real-time physical sensory connection. Once these conditions are met, even a small shared connection will prove extremely beneficial for happiness. Fredrickson takes away some of the rarity from our perception of what love is and leaves us with something more accessible. Because love and happiness are correlated, more love equals more ha...... middle of paper ...... and that always brings me joy. Because of this experience, I am more open to people and broader definitions of love. I no longer seek illusory love, I am more easily touched by small gestures of kindness and I allow them to bring me happiness. In short, love is everywhere. It is scattered throughout everyday life and is only found in the most unexpected places. If we could learn to accept love for what it really is, that is, a shared positive emotional connection, happiness might flow more easily. Love isn't just the grand gesture at the end of a romantic movie, it's not just your mother's undying affection; it's that wonderful conversation you didn't want to end with the man at the grocery store, it's a smile shared with a stranger that opened the door for you, it's around us all the time, we have to just change our perception and learn to see it.