In the end, there is one sort of feast that eclipses all the other kinds put together, and that is a feast of love. If you don't know what I'm talking about, keep searching until you do. There are as many different love-feasts as there are moments when one person reaches out to another, and all of them are wonderful.

To me, a feast of love is any instant (or hour or lifetime) when human beings exchange affection. It's true that sometimes we head hopefully toward what we think will be a love-feast, offer our hearts, and meet rejection. It's true that this hurts. But you'll find that love-feasts are so incredibly nourishing to your soul that it's worth the risk of heartbreak to attend even the smallest or most crowded one around.

Here are some ways to make sure you never miss a love-feast you could have attended.

1. In Benjamin Franklin's words, "If you would be loved, love and be lovable." Love-feasts are always potlucks: Each person must bring the ability to love, somehow, some way. If you're waiting for someone else to supply 100 percent of the love you need, find a therapist who's willing to accept reciprocation in the form of cash.
2. Don't hide love. If you feel it, express it—not to demand that others love you back, but simply to live outwardly the best of what you feel inwardly. The worst that can happen to your heart is not rejection by another person, but failure to act on the love you feel.
3. If you have a choice between a feast of love and any other option, go with love. Compared to other activities, love-feasts will mess up your life, complicate your career, wear you out, make you crazy. But I guarantee that when you look back over the time you've spent on Earth, the feasts of love will be the events you'll remember most joyfully, the experiences that will make you glad you have lived.

• Feasting on Food
•  
• Feasting on Feeling
• Feasting on Feeling

From the May 2003 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine