bhaskar saikia

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
— Paulo Coelho, Brida

Love — that word we speak so often, and yet, barely understand. Paulo Coelho once said that love makes us better. It stirs something deep within — a quiet revolution of the soul. In loving someone, we begin to see the world differently: the ordinary becomes luminous, the mundane turns sacred. We start striving, without even realizing, to become kinder, softer, and more aware.

But Coelho also reminds us of the shadow side of love:

“Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.”
— Paulo Coelho, The Zahir

Love’s light dazzles us — its beauty, its warmth, its promise of belonging. Yet to love is also to risk pain. The moment we open our hearts, we become vulnerable. We give someone the power to hurt us, disappoint us, or leave us. And still, we do it — because somewhere deep within, we know that love, despite its risks, gives life its meaning.

Pain, then, is not the opposite of love. It is its shadow — a reminder of how deeply we felt, how alive we were. To avoid love out of fear of pain is to avoid living.

And if your heart does break — take heart in this: on the bright side, heartbreak often awakens the artist within. Many a writer was born from longing, many a musician from loss, and many a philosopher from the ache of unfulfilled love. Pain has a strange way of deepening us, making us listen to life more closely, think more profoundly, and feel more truly.

So yes, to fall in love is to risk heartbreak. But it’s also to embrace the most human part of ourselves — the part that dares, despite everything, to hope, to give, to feel. Because even when love leaves us bruised, it also leaves us transformed.

And perhaps that’s what Coelho truly meant: that love, in all its beauty and pain, is not a mistake — it is our becoming.