Love Is A Many Splendorous Thing
LOVE.
The most important word in any language and yet the most confusing.
Even the great thinkers of our time agreed that love plays an integral role in our lives.
"Love makes the world go round.
" Movies, books, songs, poetry and magazines are saturated with it.
Psychologists conclude that human beings have a primary emotional need to feel loved.
For love we will fetch the moon, climb the highest mountain, cross the desert sands and endure indescribable hardships.
The Christian apostle Paul even spoke that any human accomplishment that is not motivated by love is in fact hollow and empty, and that in the last scene of the human drama, only three characters will remain and that is " faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love".
In Dr M.
Scott Peck's book The Road Less Travelled, he outlines some of the misconceptions about love or " falling in love' to be more precise.
We all have experienced that 'falling in love' feeling that we think will never end and that it will be a perpetual honeymoon.
However truth is, it does not stay the same.
"The feeling of ecstasy passes, the honeymoon always ends and the bloom of romance vanishes".
In saying that, this does not mean that the 'love' ends.
The myth of 'romantic love' Fostered into our culture is the illusion from as young as we can recall the myth of romantic love which goes something like this: Prince meets princess, unite and live happily forever after where no problems exist.
For every man there is the perfect woman the one who was meant for him, destined to be together and written in the stars since time immemorial.
Man meets woman, sparks fly, chemistry is right and this is it! This myth implies that there is only 'one' soul mate', only 'one perfect match and that if you do not fall 'head over heels' you are not in love.
As you can see this myth is a conditioning that begins in childhood and something that is more ingrained in young women than in young men.
Dependency is not love Dependency is where one has the inability to experience a sense of wholeness or being complete in order to function adequately.
When we are dependent on another person for their affection, this is not love.
To say that you 'cannot live, or do not want to live, can't breathe without, or make threats of suicide because you 'love' him or her so much, is not love but a form of parasitism.
When you desperately depend on another person for your survival, your absolute happiness then you are a parasite.
You leave no room for choice in the relationship.
When two people really love each other they are quite capable of living without each other, however it is a matter of choice that they do 'choose' to live with one another.
Whenever we feel that 'a part of me is missing', or as Dr Penelope Russianoff author of 'Why am I nothing without a man describes it as 'void without a man feeling' it is a clear sign of passive dependency.
Passively dependent people seek desperately to be loved that they themselves are incapable of loving and cannot give of themselves.
One of the aspects of this dependency is that dependent people are interested in fulfilling their own desires without concern for the growth of the other person or themselves for that matter.
Like a bottomless pit they can never be satisfied, feel complete or whole.
As a result they cannot tolerate loneliness and have no sense of identity as they define themselves by the relationship they are in.
What Love Is Genuine love is not a feeling but the commitment and concern for the other's growth on all levels.
It's about exercising commitment to one another and the relationship regardless of how they are 'feeling'.
Love is work, it is courage.
It is going beyond and extending ourselves, walking that extra mile, going beyond fear.
It is the act of attending to, nurturing and giving attention to the other person's growth as well as our own.
The best definition of what love is, is clarified in the New Testament in Paul's letter to the Corinthians in Chapter 13 verses 1-7 " Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance".
The most important word in any language and yet the most confusing.
Even the great thinkers of our time agreed that love plays an integral role in our lives.
"Love makes the world go round.
" Movies, books, songs, poetry and magazines are saturated with it.
Psychologists conclude that human beings have a primary emotional need to feel loved.
For love we will fetch the moon, climb the highest mountain, cross the desert sands and endure indescribable hardships.
The Christian apostle Paul even spoke that any human accomplishment that is not motivated by love is in fact hollow and empty, and that in the last scene of the human drama, only three characters will remain and that is " faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love".
In Dr M.
Scott Peck's book The Road Less Travelled, he outlines some of the misconceptions about love or " falling in love' to be more precise.
We all have experienced that 'falling in love' feeling that we think will never end and that it will be a perpetual honeymoon.
However truth is, it does not stay the same.
"The feeling of ecstasy passes, the honeymoon always ends and the bloom of romance vanishes".
In saying that, this does not mean that the 'love' ends.
The myth of 'romantic love' Fostered into our culture is the illusion from as young as we can recall the myth of romantic love which goes something like this: Prince meets princess, unite and live happily forever after where no problems exist.
For every man there is the perfect woman the one who was meant for him, destined to be together and written in the stars since time immemorial.
Man meets woman, sparks fly, chemistry is right and this is it! This myth implies that there is only 'one' soul mate', only 'one perfect match and that if you do not fall 'head over heels' you are not in love.
As you can see this myth is a conditioning that begins in childhood and something that is more ingrained in young women than in young men.
Dependency is not love Dependency is where one has the inability to experience a sense of wholeness or being complete in order to function adequately.
When we are dependent on another person for their affection, this is not love.
To say that you 'cannot live, or do not want to live, can't breathe without, or make threats of suicide because you 'love' him or her so much, is not love but a form of parasitism.
When you desperately depend on another person for your survival, your absolute happiness then you are a parasite.
You leave no room for choice in the relationship.
When two people really love each other they are quite capable of living without each other, however it is a matter of choice that they do 'choose' to live with one another.
Whenever we feel that 'a part of me is missing', or as Dr Penelope Russianoff author of 'Why am I nothing without a man describes it as 'void without a man feeling' it is a clear sign of passive dependency.
Passively dependent people seek desperately to be loved that they themselves are incapable of loving and cannot give of themselves.
One of the aspects of this dependency is that dependent people are interested in fulfilling their own desires without concern for the growth of the other person or themselves for that matter.
Like a bottomless pit they can never be satisfied, feel complete or whole.
As a result they cannot tolerate loneliness and have no sense of identity as they define themselves by the relationship they are in.
What Love Is Genuine love is not a feeling but the commitment and concern for the other's growth on all levels.
It's about exercising commitment to one another and the relationship regardless of how they are 'feeling'.
Love is work, it is courage.
It is going beyond and extending ourselves, walking that extra mile, going beyond fear.
It is the act of attending to, nurturing and giving attention to the other person's growth as well as our own.
The best definition of what love is, is clarified in the New Testament in Paul's letter to the Corinthians in Chapter 13 verses 1-7 " Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
It does not demand its own way.
It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance".
