You don’t get married and it’s done. You adopt a new mindset that it’s not just you and you live that way for the rest of your life. It’s always a part of your life, and you love the change.

Having a child takes it to the next level. You take on more responsibility, and you love the change.

The challenges never stop coming, never get easier, and never repeat, and you love the personal growth that facing and resolving them creates.

Unlike 50% of marriages, we’re locked into a world where our behavior affects everyone for our entire lives. Unlike the past, humanity has sadly used up the buffers between your waste and its effect on others.

Parents can’t party or travel as they used to and gone are the days when you could believe your Sunday drive wouldn’t contribute to flooding in Miami.

We aren’t as intimate with each other as family, but billions of others affect you, so you get hit by a lot if they pollute a lot. You hurt a lot of others if you pollute a lot.

Of all the emotions you can feel for others, love, for all the trouble it causes, seems to create the most rewarding relationships.

Why not love the environment and all the people you share it with? As I’m typing, I’m looking at Washington Square Park in full summer bloom in the heart of Greenwich Village. Children are playing ball. A golden retriever and its owner walked past. A guy is playing jazz saxophone. A couple is holding hands.

What’s not to love? We can’t divorce ourselves from the world anyway so you’re in this relationship for the rest of your life. Might as well love our world.

Loving the world and the people in it leads me not to hope someone else will fix it, nor to think I can change a detail here or there. I expect challenges to come, never get easier, and never repeat, and I will love the personal growth that facing and resolving them creates.

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