I was recently thinking about love.
About what it is and what it is not.
Most people think that love is some thing that happens to you. But I don't think that it is.
Attraction happens to you. Lust happens to you. Like happens to you.
But love does not just happen. Love is a choice.
Love is when you decide that someone else is more important than you. That their safety, well-being, comfort, happiness, etc is more important than yours. That if you can do something to increase those things for that other person - even (sometimes especially) if doing so will decrease your own measure of those same things - then you will try to do so.
Love is cleaning up after someone else. Not because you can't stand for things to be messy - but because it will make it so that the other person won't have to do it.
Love is going to work every morning (even when you hate your job) so that the other person won't have to (or at least won't have to as much).
Love is also making hard choices. Sometimes, the future is more important than right now.
If all we are doing is spoiling those that we claim to love then we are doing them no favors. Children need to develop their own sense of accomplishment and responsibility. They usually don't enjoy developing either of these traits - but they will need them to become whole healthy people.
There is obviously more to love than this and more ways that it is manifested.
But the one most important thing is that you don't 'fall in love'. And you don't 'fall out of love'.
No one is a victim of love like that.
We choose to love others. And sometimes we choose to stop.
About what it is and what it is not.
Most people think that love is some thing that happens to you. But I don't think that it is.
Attraction happens to you. Lust happens to you. Like happens to you.
But love does not just happen. Love is a choice.
Love is when you decide that someone else is more important than you. That their safety, well-being, comfort, happiness, etc is more important than yours. That if you can do something to increase those things for that other person - even (sometimes especially) if doing so will decrease your own measure of those same things - then you will try to do so.
Love is cleaning up after someone else. Not because you can't stand for things to be messy - but because it will make it so that the other person won't have to do it.
Love is going to work every morning (even when you hate your job) so that the other person won't have to (or at least won't have to as much).
Love is also making hard choices. Sometimes, the future is more important than right now.
If all we are doing is spoiling those that we claim to love then we are doing them no favors. Children need to develop their own sense of accomplishment and responsibility. They usually don't enjoy developing either of these traits - but they will need them to become whole healthy people.
There is obviously more to love than this and more ways that it is manifested.
But the one most important thing is that you don't 'fall in love'. And you don't 'fall out of love'.
No one is a victim of love like that.
We choose to love others. And sometimes we choose to stop.
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