I used to think love was how you feel about someone. I
thought it was when you feel butterflies in your stomach and you can’t breathe!
I thought love was when you couldn’t stay a day without your
partner or go a day without thinking about them.
I thought having sex with that person was love or will make
you feel loved.
I thought love was when you feel and think about someone to
the point that you can’t resist or you are too obsessed over the person.
I used to think love conquers all, because that is what they
make us believe in movies but you see is not like that in real life.
From the time we were born we are inundated with the belief
that love is a feeling and that when you find “the one” you’ll sense it in your
gut and be overcome by an undeniable sense of knowing.
If love is not a feeling, then what is it?
Love is action. Love is tolerance. Love is learning your
partner’s love language and then expressing love in a way that he can receive.
Love is giving. Love is receiving. Love is patient. Love is kind.
Love is selfless. Love is
hopeful. Love is respect. Love is support.
Love is recognizing that it’s not your partner’s job to make
you feel alive, fulfilled, or complete; that’s your job. And it’s only when you
learn to become the source of your own aliveness and are living your life
connected to the spark of genius that is everyone’s birthright can you fully
love another.
Love is many things in different colours, in different
circumstances. You do not have to love,
you choose to love. I think, it is when you feel you are falling out of love
that is when you are really beginning to love. Real love does not have its
roots from the feeling of love, instead when you are lacking that feeling.
You don’t have to encourage it, or welcome it, but you
better learn to suck it up from time to time. We have mythologized love to such
an extent that people are no longer prepared for the realities of long-term
relationships. We are taught that it is good not to compromise, not to put up with
anything we don’t like, not to sacrifice our own beliefs for anyone or
anything.
Yet compromise and sacrifice are the cornerstones of marital
love. Sugarcoat it in anyway, if you respect and support each other without any
expectation of something in return or if each person is primarily valued for
the relationship itself- not for their job, status, appearance, success or
anything else, then give yourselves some love.
Love is a grace we give one another.
Love is sometimes effortful, but it’s not based on someone
else’s effort.
Love is what happens when we open our hearts and allow the
love that naturally lives inside to flow forth.
Love, by its very definition, is unconditional.
Love is a gift.
Love is why we’re here.
