Every single person has their own personal idea of what love is, it may seem similar but is really not, everyone has different expectations of it. But what is really love? Is it a feeling? A concept? Or an illusion? If love is such a strong word, why can we say “I love my mom” and “I love hot dogs” using the same expression? Does it mean that both are in the same category or at the same level? Does it mean that we don’t have enough words in the English vocabulary to categorize the levels that express a fond for something? Or does it mean that we don’t know how to use this statement correctly? Personally I think that a lot of times we don’t know how to use the expression correctly, we don’t realize the importance of this sentiment. I believe that love is the most intense feeling that exists. Love is the center of our existence and is also a huge responsibility and a big commitment, to me the best way to describe the idea of love is how the bible describes it 1rst Corinthians 13 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...” Wow! Amazing isn’t it? It doesn’t miss anything! It shows us that love is more than a warm, cozy feeling; it shows that love requires forgiveness, commitment, and is never selfish. Doesn’t sound easy, right? In fact it seems very hard. We all think that we know how to love and that we clearly understand the concept and what it conveys but the truth is that many times we don’t. Love is one of the first feelings we learn since we are children, we love our parents, we love our siblings, we love our pets etc…. When we are children we are more honest and truthful but when we grow up it becomes harder to leave our interest at side for those of the people that we love. Is not that I have lost faith in love or that I have a cynical concept of it, but I am realist enough to realize that we rarely can achieve the kind of love that 1rst Corinthians describes.
Why is it easier to have confrontations with those that we love than with strangers? Personally, I’ve been in this situation many times with relatives and friends alike, it seems more likely that a quarrel with arise between some one I have feelings for versus a complete stranger. I believe this concept takes us to the deeper side of love, the side that is not romanticized or commercialized, true love or just the feeling of connection with someone will make you want to point out their mistakes or whatever they did to hurt us or harm us, we don’t usually take this stance with strangers, it’s harder to stand up to a bully or to a harassing stranger. We believe that love gives us the right to point out our loved one’s mistakes, which is more a side of the egotistical nature that goes hand in hand with love. Love is said to be egoistic because we want to keep those dear to us closer to ourselves and tailored to our feelings-way of living, for example, no mother wants their son/daughter to leave the city of town where they have all resided as a family, while common knowledge tells us that it’s normal and sane for sons and daughters to leave the paternal home in order for them to venture into the real world and make a place for themselves. The hardest truth of love is that of loving someone so much that their opinions, dreams and quirks are not only respected but revered. I believe humans are social animals; we need companionship and social order in order to live happy and satisfying lives, but at the same time we feel confronted with selfish feelings, so it’s usually a very thin line between correcting someone from a mistake or harming habit and between being meddlesome.
Types of love or why do we love it’s also a topic worthwhile mentioning while we are at it. Do we love our family just because they are family or do they have to posses certain characteristics for us to love them? We usually love our parents because their loved is one of the most pure and unselfish, but not everybody experiences such love. Do we learn to love? Or is it an instinct, love is usually learned from our parents when we are very young, we have archetypes for what love should do and how should we behave and what should we sacrifice if we truly love someone. As far as friends and relationships goes, sometimes we love because we have an innate need of acceptance, which we usually find with peers, other behaviors such as the way we feel with a particular person may lead us to love. Romantic love is usually sparked by a physical attraction which is then fed with mutual feelings or personality types that we find appealing. On romantic relationships I where we usually find love’s dark side having our own interests being placed first before the other person, selfishness sets in and since we already have pretty defined individual archetypes of what love should be we find conflict with different ideas and definitions of love, some people believe that true love swipes you off your feet and sets you to follow blindly your object of desire, while some other people merely see it as a compliment to life completely separate from you and therefore the main rule is “don’t mess with my life as I wouldn’t with yours”.
In conclusion love is a deep concept subject to individual’s perception and learned behaviors on what and how love should behave, the true is that real love is not conditional and is not a consumer novelty, love should be able to withstand many trivial issues such as personality quirks and phases where romantic love may not be possible for whatever reason (economic problems, sickness, etc.)
Why is it easier to have confrontations with those that we love than with strangers? Personally, I’ve been in this situation many times with relatives and friends alike, it seems more likely that a quarrel with arise between some one I have feelings for versus a complete stranger. I believe this concept takes us to the deeper side of love, the side that is not romanticized or commercialized, true love or just the feeling of connection with someone will make you want to point out their mistakes or whatever they did to hurt us or harm us, we don’t usually take this stance with strangers, it’s harder to stand up to a bully or to a harassing stranger. We believe that love gives us the right to point out our loved one’s mistakes, which is more a side of the egotistical nature that goes hand in hand with love. Love is said to be egoistic because we want to keep those dear to us closer to ourselves and tailored to our feelings-way of living, for example, no mother wants their son/daughter to leave the city of town where they have all resided as a family, while common knowledge tells us that it’s normal and sane for sons and daughters to leave the paternal home in order for them to venture into the real world and make a place for themselves. The hardest truth of love is that of loving someone so much that their opinions, dreams and quirks are not only respected but revered. I believe humans are social animals; we need companionship and social order in order to live happy and satisfying lives, but at the same time we feel confronted with selfish feelings, so it’s usually a very thin line between correcting someone from a mistake or harming habit and between being meddlesome.
Types of love or why do we love it’s also a topic worthwhile mentioning while we are at it. Do we love our family just because they are family or do they have to posses certain characteristics for us to love them? We usually love our parents because their loved is one of the most pure and unselfish, but not everybody experiences such love. Do we learn to love? Or is it an instinct, love is usually learned from our parents when we are very young, we have archetypes for what love should do and how should we behave and what should we sacrifice if we truly love someone. As far as friends and relationships goes, sometimes we love because we have an innate need of acceptance, which we usually find with peers, other behaviors such as the way we feel with a particular person may lead us to love. Romantic love is usually sparked by a physical attraction which is then fed with mutual feelings or personality types that we find appealing. On romantic relationships I where we usually find love’s dark side having our own interests being placed first before the other person, selfishness sets in and since we already have pretty defined individual archetypes of what love should be we find conflict with different ideas and definitions of love, some people believe that true love swipes you off your feet and sets you to follow blindly your object of desire, while some other people merely see it as a compliment to life completely separate from you and therefore the main rule is “don’t mess with my life as I wouldn’t with yours”.
In conclusion love is a deep concept subject to individual’s perception and learned behaviors on what and how love should behave, the true is that real love is not conditional and is not a consumer novelty, love should be able to withstand many trivial issues such as personality quirks and phases where romantic love may not be possible for whatever reason (economic problems, sickness, etc.)
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