Ever since I made the goal I mentioned in my last post, I've had the topic of love on my mind a lot. Not just concerning myself, but lots of other people in my life. Over the past few months I've seen people fall in and out of love with each other a lot and it's gotten me wondering how many of them actually loved the other (which I've pondered about on this blog a lot already). But it really is something that's on my mind a lot, so I'm going to ramble about it again today.I look at some of my friends who are married now and I wonder how long it took each of them to know that the other person was the one for them. Did they know before they got married? Did they know right when they met? Did it take a few months of married life for them to know? Also, I wonder what it was that sparked that feeling in each of them. As far as my reltionships have gone, I can know that I like a girl right from the start, but it usually takes some time before I realize that I love them, and I've never really been sure what she does that causes the change in feelings. I don't really think that it could be just one thing, but rather a culmination of many things over a period of time. Who knows? For those of you who read this and have met "the one for you", how did you know that they were?
If you've been reading this blog for long enough, you'll remember that post where I shared my various thoughts on love. I've shown that post to several people since I wrote it and every one of them has said basically the same thing: "Oh, that is so true!" which, in my mind, it is. Love is not an easy thing to obtain. Love has to be sought for. It's not going to just fall into your lap. I see too many people nowadays that just want the perfect man/woman to seek them out and find them without any effort of their own, but it just doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. If you want your perfect match in life, you're going to have to actually try to find them, and when you do, it's not going to be an easy, leisurely stroll after that. No, you're going to have to work at the relationship if you want it to succeed. Too many relationships fail because either one, or both, of the people involved think they can just sit back and let Fate work her magic. It's not until the relationship is over that they realize they should have actually done something to help Fate along.
I'm really sounding bitter, aren't I? I'm not trying to, honestly. These are just some of the thoughts that have been floating around my mind lately. Anyway, what do the rest of you think? Can you prove me wrong? Can love actually just fall straight into your lap? Let me know.
Hi, I'm Trevor and I'm single. Aren't we supposed to start like that when we post on your blog? I don't know. It feels good to be open about it, though. Yes, I am single. Wait...was I supposed to use my name? Is this supposed to be anonymous? Dang.
ReplyDeleteWell, anyway, one thing I feel about 'love' is that our society uses the term far too loosely. We love our parents (some of us), we love our dog, we love chocolate, we love Lost or American Idol, we love her-- no her-- no wait, now her( or him for you ladies reading). But do we really LOVE all those things; or do we just ENJOY those things?
What triggered this spontaneous comment of mine is your saying: "Over the past few months I've seen people fall in and out of love with each other a lot and it's gotten me wondering how many of them actually loved the other (which I've pondered about on this blog a lot already)."
I think love has three main definitions that we lump into one word we use over and over. Love = liking, and good-feeling-towards. Love = physical attraction and pleasure; i.e. being in love where you crave the other person. Love = a profound caring, concern, and interest in someone else.
I think the term love deserves a little more respect-- even reverence perhaps-- than we give it. When I say love, I try to mean the third definition. I am trying not to say "I love chocolate" because my feelings for chocolate have nothing to do with love. Strong pleasure, yes, but not love. I've dated a lot of girls I didn't love. I am friends with a lot of people I don't love. Ok, yes, I 'love' them in that first sense of the word: I have good feeling towards them. But I prefer not to use the term love for that. For me love is, as you said Bryson, something that must be sought. It is something deep and serious, while light and joyous at the same time. I think love grows over time. I don't think you can really love someone at first sight. You can be attracted to them and know that you are compatible; but how can you truly love someone you have never thought about, never served, never laughed with or carried in your heart (mosiah 5:13)? It is something that binds me with certain friends and family whom I have relationships with. It is something that will bind me to my future wife. When I say I will love her, I don't mean like I love American Idol and all the previous girl friends I've had. I esteem her above all other flesh, even my own (another vague scriptural reference here from Genesis I believe).
And that kind of love is something special we share with a very limited number of people in our lives. It is hard to describe because the word love is so thrown around and means so many things. Those friends who fall in and out of love frequently, I feel, have no idea what real love is and are confusedly using 'love' in the place of attraction, enjoyment, and good-feeling-towards. But they will know love when it comes, when it grows in their relationship.
Not entirely sure how welcome my thoughts are here at the moment. But if it's not too much trouble I'd like to chime in a bit here if I could.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that love, true love by the correct definition of the word, just falls right into your lap. It's not something I would particularly like to agree with, I do wish that it was true, that's for sure. But I do agree with it nonetheless because it's true, simple as that. What I do think falls right into your lap though are opportunities for you to find the person that you do love, to discover those feelings towards that person for yourself, and most importantly, to prove to them that you do love them and to put everything that's great about you out there for them to see so that you can give them a reason to love you back. Our job is to acknowledge those opportunities when they do fall in our lap and take advantage of them to their fullest.
Thing is no matter how much you truly, deeply love someone, they have to love you back or else it means nothing. This is something I've come to learn for myself in my days, albeit the extremely painfully hard way, multiple times. In some cases it's been because I didn't realize the opportunity when it was there, in others I've realized it, I just never had any idea how I was going to take advantage of them. That's actually something I feel I've been gradually learning over the years and am still in the process of gradually learning. But I do think that's a major issue for some people who end up falling in and out of love. The majority of them have no clue what love really is and misuse that word all over the place, yes. But I don't think that's necessarily the truth for all of them. I think that sometimes those people either don't realize the opportunity to fall in love with someone and make them fall in love with them or are too timid to figure out how to take that advantage until it's too late. At that point you've lost them, most likely for good, and all you can do is try to move on and pray it's possible for you to fall for someone else, which is a process that lasts a long time and is painfully difficult to do. It's quite the tragedy, really.
With that said I do think that if you truly, deeply love someone, whether or not you fail or how many times you fail before you get it right, you should still at least try to do everything in your power to take advantage of those opportunities when they do present themselves. It doesn't necessarily mean that you don't love that person if you don't, but if you don't persevere when the going gets rough and you just give up on them, how are they ever going to know how much you love them? It is something that you have to show and prove every bit as much as you feel.
Well, I have only recently been able to use the word love in it's truest meaning towards relationships. I've dated a few guys before that I really liked, but it never grew into love for various reasons. But I'm now in love. It definitely didn't come easy. Both of us had to allow it to happen instead of putting up our guards and hiding from it. And it doesn't mean that it's just an easy thing now. Our relationship is not perfect, but it works, and we have never been happier. We've had a couple of break ups to be completely honest, but those ended up strenghtening us. We've had our fights, but we just learned how to apologize and listen to each other. Our relationship was actually easier before love came into play, but it's better than it was before now that love had come in. I don't know...maybe i'm just. But hopefully this applies hahaha!
ReplyDelete@Trevor: Wow. Your comment was amazing and I had to read it a couple of times, just because of that. I think you've hit the nail square on the head; the word love really is bandied about too mich nowadays. I especially like the fact that you pointed out that people claim to "love American Idol or Lost". That's one of the worst uses of the word, in my opinion. I especially like your scriptural references in regards to loving someone. It's just so frustrating to hear people say that they love/loved somoeone after only knowing them for a few weeks. There's no way you could really love them that quickly. It just doesn't happen like that.
ReplyDelete@BroEl: They say that hindsight is 20/20, and I think that's especially true in cases such as the ones you've referenced. When those opportunities present themselves, you need to jump on them, because there's no telling how long they're going to be around.
@Laurabelle: You know that I'm your number one fan when it comes to your relationship. I support both of you and the fact that you can know that you're in love with him is just awesome to me. I really wish both of you the best and I hope that everything works out for you.
What an interesting post to read, thanks for bringing it up.
ReplyDelete