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Reflections February 2015

Life Is for Living

What Is Love?

By Neil Wyrick

The glue that holds love together is commitment with wise moments of understanding and compromise. Without commitment love then is no more than infatuation. To be able to love others you have to love yourself. Self-haters meet the world with a clenched fist.

It all makes sense, this tornado called love that makes our minds and emotions go around in circles and leaves us slightly dizzy. There is something wonderfully sensitive about this emotion that can make us so selfless as we fight selfishness.

It is so good to be loved back, to receive an echo of the same thoughtfulness we have given. Of course, the best kind of love is that which does not demand receipt of the same – such as loving the unlovely despite rather than because.

It's February, the month of dancing happiness-hearts, all spelled out on Valentine cards. And since love is always kind, the thought crosses my mind – why should this kind of emotion be restricted to just one day?

A world without love is a world composed of all getting and no giving. It creates the kind of person who concentrates on receiving benefits from others but does so on a one-way street. In this kind of world, wars multiply and those who have much simply want more and cannot care that others thereby receive less. It is a giant foolishness, but then there is never a shortage of fools.

The glue that holds love together is commitment with wise moments of understanding and compromise. Without commitment love then is no more than infatuation. To be able to love others you have to love yourself. Self-haters meet the world with a clenched fist.

You have little control over love. You cannot make someone love you. It can be legalized but not legislated. True love is a loyal companionship. True love worships at the altar of justice. True love honors the sovereignty of each individual.

True love is centered in respect, for if you cannot respect the object of your affection temporary love will shrivel and die.

How can I know I love you, not in a romantic sense but as a friend? I must ask two questions: do I care about the kind of person you are and what I can do to make you a better, happier person?

The greatest challenge of love is to love who happens to be around at work or at play. We have so little control over what family we are born into or school we go to or all the other elements that make up our daily atmosphere.

In my counseling sessions I have one piece of advice I always give, "Love each other more than yourself." And having given it once, I give it again.

To love is to be sincere. It is not shaky or uncertain depending on the time of day or mood. It survives and grows stronger even after anger has taken over for a while. It is good in a manner called universal good. It is warm, and cozy, and constant, and content all wrapped up in a package called common sense. And if you have it and give it, the world is better, so very much better, because you live.

 

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