This weekend I attended the beautiful wedding of my Fraternity Brother, Diego Soto. I was so overwhelmed by emotion at every single turn. The obvious emotion of the wedding. The beauty of the love shared by the young couple embarking on a journey that will last them the rest of their lives. The beauty of friendship between me, the groom, my fraternity brothers and other close friends in attendance. The memories that we shared throughout college and beyond have been motivating, inspiring, and life altering. And, finally the love we share with complete strangers. So many people there that I have never met before but we are able to share in such positive emotion and come together to celebrate this amazing occasion together as fellow brothers and sisters, not thinking too much about who each other are but simply expressing love and care for our fellow-man who shares a one singular thing in common with us, that we know of, and that is the support we have for the young couple getting married.

This phenomenon reminded me of a speech delivered by Dr. King that he describes the three types of love in that way. And discusses the importance of each type of love. The Romantic Love, The Friendship Love, and The Love For Our Fellow Man. All so very different, all so very similar, all so very integral to our happiness and to the success of ourselves and our world/society.

This thought crossed my mind as we drove to the reception from the ceremony as we discussed former heroes of our day. One of my best friends, and brother that I respect more than most inspired the thought that led me to speak about Malcolm X and mention that despite my tremendous respect for Malcolm he had one fatal flaw that lead to his mass accumulation of enemies and his eventual downfall. He thought he could build using anger and hate. Yes anger and hate are great motivators but look at any relationship or project you have built on anger and hate. It never lasts and if it does lasts it has such a shaky foundation and just leads to more negative emotion (e.g., insecurity, violence, and turmoil). The only foundation we can use to build is love. Love is the only foundation that is built to last. Not to say everything created on the foundation of love will last forever. Just to say a house is built on a great structural foundation doesn’t mean that it will not succumb to disaster by hurricane, tornado, or be poorly structure in other ways. But regardless of other mishaps that can happen in the building and post building we must always start with the most solid of foundations to have a hope to create something that will be built to last. We must always start with love and resist the urge to start with easier short-term motivators like fear and anger.

The beautiful wedding I experienced today reminded me of that. I will always be grateful of Diego and Melissa for their many gifts. I wish them tremendous amounts of success moving forward. I know that their foundation is as solid as can be and at this point so early in their lives. You cannot ask for any more.