My search for guidance throughout engagement and early marriage brought along many enlightening conversations -- some unintentionally so. One night I found myself chatting with an older gentleman outside of a concert venue and asking him for his best piece of marriage advice. His response was: never stop putting yourself first, because you came into this world alone, and you’ll leave it alone.

His words to me represent how so many people see love and marriage today: casual and temporary, and ultimately keeping the self as the number one priority. Why improve or sacrifice for the sake of someone else when you are the most important person in your life?

Christ came to show us sinners a different path. He did not come to affirm our feelings or our sinfulness, but to guide us out of the cave. True love extends a hand to the other and prompts us to take that path. This love is an action; we cannot say we carry the love of Christ but act with merely the love of self. The world tells us not to self-deny, but to self-worship. We need to combat this, not succumb to it.