Accessing Our Love, and Other Challenges

Are we “cultivating” love, compassion, and joy, or do we already have plenty and just need to access it?
 
If we have plenty, and just need to learn how to access it, what’s in the way of doing that? For me, it’s wanting to hold onto the things that are working, and wanting all the really awful moments to end: all that wanting for things to be different, instead of learning to be “in” love right in this (imperfect) present.

Which makes me wonder: if that’s true for me, is it true for everyone? And if so, then does that mean everyone? And if it does, then is compassion the right response, for all the everyone’s who just don’t know, yet, how to access their love?