Love Is a Choice, Not a Structure
When I was 19, I worked nights at a driving range.
Nothing glamorous.
Buckets, lights, closing duties.
The kind of job where conversations happen because there’s nothing else to do.
My closing partner was Allen.
He was older than me.
Had three daughters.
They were all getting married around the same time.
One night, between picking up balls and shutting down the range, he told me something that stuck.
He said his daughters forced him to marry his wife before they got married themselves.
Not because of tradition.
Not because of religion.
But because they didn’t believe in marriage.
Allen and his wife were hippies.
They believed that if they loved each other, they would stay together.
And if one day they didn’t, they would separate.
No ideology.
No structure holding them in place.
At the time, I didn’t argue with him.
I didn’t agree either.
I just listened.
Later, when I thought about my own parents, I realized something important.
That way of thinking made sense to me.
Not the no-marriage part.
But the idea underneath it.
Love wasn’t something you declared.
It was something you chose, over and over.
Love wasn’t protected by a system.
It existed only as long as people acted on it.
That was the first time I understood this clearly:
Love is a choice, not a structure.
And over time, that idea became even more specific for me.
Love is a verb.
It’s not something you shout.
It’s not something you post.
It’s not something you assume stays alive on its own.
Love shows up as action.
It’s helping when there’s no guarantee of closeness afterward.
It’s staying present without needing emotional symmetry.
It’s doing the right thing quietly, without keeping score.
Golf reinforced this idea for me in a strange way.
On the course, intention doesn’t matter much.
Only what you actually do.
You can mean to hit a good shot.
You can feel committed to the swing.
The ball only responds to action.
Love feels the same.
Saying it doesn’t sustain it.
Structure doesn’t sustain it.
Only action does.
Looking back, I realize I didn’t inherit this belief.
No one sat me down and explained it.
I picked it up from a conversation at a driving range, late at night, while doing a job I didn’t plan to keep.
That’s how most of my principles entered my life.
Quietly.
Without asking permission.