What we want to do now is, think about how we as individuals can think about our new understanding of love coming out of this course, and how we're going to incorporate that into our future lives. >> Before taking this course, I think my definition of love was strictly relational. As in, love is something that you feel for your family or for a significant other. And through the course, one of the things that really stuck with me is that, love isn't some finite pool that you can only give it to a certain amount of people, and if you give it to too many people, you spread your love too thinly. Rather, love is more like a fountain that no matter how much you give, there's always more to give. >> My definition of love changed over the course, where I think especially focusing on the fact that it's called like love as a force for social justice. I came into the course thinking that we do a lot of dissecting of identity, but I was sort of surprised to learn that love really starts with the self. And sort of moving into the future. I think one thing that I'm doing more is incorporating love into my conceptions of social justice. One way we talked about it in class one time was sort of how, there's a difference when your social justice is motivated by anger versus motivated by love. Because anger is this fuel that runs out eventually, where love is continual and is a more long lasting method towards creating change. One thing my dad told me was that, the more you love, the more you get to love, which is something that I think I'm learning more. And so for me, moving into the future, incorporating love into social justice means, teaching others like on tons of different levels whether it's like teaching the people who I live with, or teaching kids at a summer camp over like five weeks or something like that. But, yeah, this was kind of rambling, maybe, but love is something that I will continue to do in the future, and now I'm done, okay, bye. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] I hope so. >> [LAUGH] When I think of how my view of love has changed over the course of the class, I think there's a lot of nuance that's been added to my understanding and my conception of love. One of the main ways, I think, that has happened as I'm thinking about love, not just as actions. Although I think that's really, really important for me, but also as an awareness. And I think a lot of that came from doing weekly reflections. Where we had to reflect on acts of love that either we did or we experienced from others in our lives. I think one of the biggest realizations for me, or maybe not realizations, but just really internalizations from this course, was realizing how important vulnerability is to love. And being willing to be vulnerable with the people that you love, and just in general. And I think a big part of being vulnerable and opening yourself up to other people is being honest. And I think that starts on like a day-to-day level. And so I think, something that I've been trying to do is in my conversations with anyone I talk with, whether it's just someone who I see in the dorm, or professor, whoever it is. Really being honest when they ask, how I'm doing or just ask about my life. And trying to do an honest job of listening when I ask about theirs. because I feel like it can be very easy often to slip into a habit where you ask about someone's day or you ask about someone how they're doing. But you're not really asking it, it's just kind of you do it because you know that you should or it's just something that you do. So we're trying to be intentional about listening in that way. And being honest in my intentions when I'm asking someone. Being willing to give the energy that they need, for me to listen and respond. >> This class helps me put teaching in context as very much a loving act, when it comes to having the patience with the student as they learn something. And also taking your time to really care about, not only the thing you teach, but the people you're teaching it to. On a smaller scale, I really like eating with the people I live with, and listening to their stories at the end of the day. >> Another aspects of the course that stood out for me a lot, was learning how love could be viewed as something really powerful, as a source of strength. And something that's really fierce. And, that was something very new to me because I think we think of love as something very soft and very tender, and not usable as a motivation to do something. I've tried to be more honest with the people that I love about things about them that I really value, and I think are really special about them. Because, as we talked about in class, it's very easy to talk about love and talk about loving others. And even agape love, but one of the hardest things for all of us was to practice that kind of loving towards ourselves. I think that we would never say to other people some of the things we can say to ourselves. I just want to make everyone that I love see themselves the way that I see them. I think coming into this course, my conception of love was that, it was something that an individual didn't really have any agency about. You meet someone, and maybe you'll end up loving them, maybe you won't. Maybe you love your family deeply, maybe you don't. And all of these things are not totally in your control. But as I got further and further in this course, I started realizing that love is something that can be practiced, and something that can be honed and something that can be slowly worked on such that it approaches something of habit, right? And I think, it makes me feel a lot more agency about whether or not I can love, whether or not I can exhibit compassion and empathy in my day to day life and all sorts of different areas. One colleague that really comes to mind for me as somebody who's very conscientious and definitely exhibited a love in his day-to-day sort of living and lifestyle. When he was walking by meeting rooms or classrooms or office spaces and he saw the lights on, he would always go out of his way to just step inside the room, turn it off and then keep going. When he was outside walking on the street and he saw a bike light that was still turned on, he would always take his time, just five, ten seconds, move to the bike, like turn it off so that it saves energy, and it helps save the person who owns the bike the grief of running out of batteries on their bike light. And these little things that are very easy to do, reflected something that was really deep about the habit he had sort of built in considering what other people might need. >> An act of love that I practice whenever I'm at home in Vancouver, my home town, is I try and carry around granola bars because, often when I walk around, I encounter a lot of homeless and street involved people. So, instead of giving them coins or money, which I don't often have on me, I can just drop off a little snack for them. >> Even though it's not may be something that is tangible, as we think of and we think about a movement or may be a a specific act of love is, giving a gift or spending time with someone. But just having that awareness, I think really changes the way that I experience life on a daily basis. And I think when we change the way we experience life and we live, we change the potential for the love that we can give to others, and how we can change the world. And I think that's been the biggest way that my perspective on love has shift over the course of the class.
