I wanted to add an angle that's a little less snarky. What I'm saying is that accepting that love is nowhere felt like the first step to accepting that love is everywhere.
It does seem a fair bit like detachment a la St. John of the Cross, who says we have to let go of things according to our natural way of wanting them, in order to truly taste and enjoy them for the first time. Our attachments are the stories our instincts weave like nets to rope good things in: "Her love should come to me because she is my mother," or "His love should come to me because we're compatible and I want to get married." It's a way of relating to the world more suited to a child, whereby we see good things primarily in how they relate to us. We let go of some as we get older, but the deeper stuff tends to stay. It's not that it's wrong, exactly.
But I'm convinced happiness comes from seeing even these more deeply needed and wonderful things in that detached way. Not in relation to us, but as they stand in themselves. To the degree I learned and accepted that love-coming-to-me was nowhere, I could feel for the first time that love-beautiful-in-all-hearts was everywhere, and sense the comforting warmth of it.
To be comforted and warmed by reality! Who would have thought?
But this is damn hard, and in my case apparently required some serious trauma. So I'm not sure it's something you can really just do, to be honest. But anyway, I may be wrong in my assessment about these things. It's just how it appears to me now.
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