I'm not a love expert, but I want to share with you all, a singular definition now which I think cuts through all of the other pieces and makes love a fairly simple measure. Of course some would say, there's so many words and things to describe love, but how would you describe love if there were no words? In times we say so much "I love you" to people, phrase loses the meaning itself so to me at least....nothing can really describe love. Not even words are powerful enough....it's just words so we can understand each other (in our language, lol.)
Love is not ONE thing. But the kind of love you experience in your life varies. The love that you have for your brother or sister is different than the love you have for your boyfriend or girlfriend, which is different from the love you have for your grandparents, or for your best friend.
Love: "...the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."
This definition makes it really simple to make sense out of...if it's really a loving relationship. And by spiritual growth, it means to help you connect your life to something bigger than you. Help you grow and develop as a person. Help you have meaning and purpose in your life and help you find meaning and purpose in your life and have it manifest in your life. And so a loving relationship, should do that. Being in a relationship with somebody that is a loving relationship should make you and your partner...or your friend, a better person. If it's not...then it's probably not love. It may be valuable, but it's probably not love.
So, what does love mean? Well...love means:
- Knowing the person: It means, we have some level of intimacy. I understand who you are, you understand who I am.
- Caring about the person: That you care about the welfare of the person. You want their life to be better. And you work towards that.
- Having a responsibility toward the person: Responsibility towards the person, this is part of the commitment piece that I have a responsibility that your life will be better because I'm part of it and conversely I know my life will be...and sometimes responsibility comes down to simple things like..."Yeah, I'll pick you up after school. (I don't want to), but I will" or "I'll take care of the kids here" or "I'll do the laundry." It's not just about you making me happy. It's about a responsibility to the relationship.
- Having respect and dignity for the person: There's a lot of emotional abuse in the part. Dignity and abuse cannot go hand-in-hand. Physical and emotional abuse...can't be present if love is present. Physical and emotional cannot coexist with love.
- Accepting Imperfection: Accepting the imperfections, in fact, that's often times how we really know them. It's like I'm willing to share with you...those little weird things that I do or random crap I say. And....you're going to share them with me, because I trust you.
- Growth for both people in the relationship: And that this idea of spiritual development or moving towards something bigger, growth for both people in the relationship.
So how's your love? LOL! =]
Feel free to comment or AIM me your thoughts!
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