With the beginning of a new year I sit and reflect on some of the lessons I have learned over the course of my time here on earth. It’s true, that in comparison to some my time on earth has been brief, but I like to think that I have tried my best to learn all that I can in the time I have had. As I ponder over lessons I have learned I have come to realize that I am a product of my environment, a creation of my parents, influenced by loved ones and the circumstances I have been exposed to. I have learned lessons about truth, hope, forgiveness and tenacity. I have discovered the importance of hard work, intelligence and honesty. Of all these admirable qualities and lessons, though, the most important has been that of unconditional love. To me, one cannot exist without the other. Love can never be conditional, it contradicts the very basis of what love means. To love is to choose, involuntarily or not, to accept and forgive all things a person is and strives to be. Love is not, as people would like to think, looking blindly at others faults but accepting that they exist and recognizing that their positive qualities greatly overshadow whatever flaws they may have. It is embracing the person for who they are and what they stand for. In doing this, you love a person because of who they are and not how they treat you and when you give your love to someone in this manner it becomes something permanent. Now the way in which you love them can change, but it can never disappear. That would imply a sort of condition based on time. And Love has none of these conditions.