Real Talk: Love Above All Else

Hey everyone,

I wasn’t going to write about this. I usually try to keep things light and positive here, focusing on the good stuff and staying in my lane. But sometimes things happen that shake you to your core and remind you what really matters, and I just can’t stay quiet.

The recent shooting involving Charlie Kirk has been heavy on my heart. And before you click away thinking this is going to be some political rant – it’s not. I’m not here to talk politics or take sides. This is about something much more fundamental: our humanity.

Every time something like this happens – school shootings, assassinations, fighting in a local convenience store, online threats, etc.,  I’m reminded of how fragile life is and how quickly everything can change. But more than that, I’m reminded of how we’ve somehow forgotten how to see each other as human beings first.

I keep coming back to what God says about love. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” These aren’t suggestions or nice ideas to consider when it’s convenient – they’re commandments. They’re supposed to be the foundation of how we interact with each other.

And here’s what breaks my heart: somewhere along the way, we’ve let our differences become more important than our shared humanity. We’ve let labels and categories and political affiliations define how we treat each other instead of remembering that every single person we encounter is someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s friend.

I think about my own life and the people I interact with every day. The cashier at the grocery store who’s working two jobs to support her kids. The elderly man at the gas station who just wants someone to smile at him and ask how his day is going. The teenager who’s struggling with confidence and just needs someone to believe in them.

These are real people with real stories, real pain, real joy. And honestly? That’s what I want to be known for. Not my photography skills or my business success, but for how I loved people. For how I made them feel seen and valued and important. For how I chose kindness even when it wasn’t easy or convenient. And truthfully, I struggle with this as much as anybody, but I’m working hard at it.

I want people to walk away from an interaction with me feeling better about themselves and the world. I want to be the person who sees the good in others, who gives the benefit of the doubt, who chooses compassion over judgment every single time.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what matters. Not whether we agree on everything, not whether we vote the same way or have the same opinions about every issue, but whether we remembered to love each other well.

We’re all just trying to figure life out. We’re all carrying burdens that others can’t see. We all need grace and kindness and someone to believe in us, especially when we’re struggling.

So let’s choose love. Let’s choose to see each other as human beings first. Let’s choose to be the light in someone’s day instead of adding to the darkness that already feels overwhelming sometimes.

The world needs more love, more compassion, more people who are willing to put humanity above everything else. And it starts with each of us, in every interaction, every single day.

That’s what I’m committing to. That’s what I hope you see in my life – not just in the photography stuff, but in how I treat the person bagging my groceries, how I respond when someone cuts me off in traffic, how I interact with people who think differently than I do.

Love above all else. That’s what matters.

Talk soon, Alisha