What is LOVE?

Love. The four letter word that speaks volumes. It seems like everybody have their own definition for love. Some people love their cat, their car their shoe, their shirt. Some people love their husband or wife. Some people love sex. One thing is for sure, everyone wants to be loved but not everyone are good at it. The idea of love nowadays is derived from romantic movies, fairy tales, story books, popular songs or Facebook memes. And they all show fuzzy romantic type of love. As you are aware, in reality these things doesn’t happen but it leads to anxiety and pain. That’s because these ideas in themselves are flaw. Love today mostly is based on ownership and selfishness.

“You’re my babe, honey, sweetheart, bae, you’re my love and I love you… But only if you are with me.” That’s a possessive type of love. That is a love with strings attached. That’s an impure type of love. Ask yourself a question, who do you hate the most? Most of the answers will be probably somebody you used to love. If you see statistics, quite a large number of murders are done out of crimes of passion. Couples that once held hands, are now holding guns at each other because of jealousy and obsession. Couples that once shared tinder kisses are now sharing hatred on one another. How can that be? How can the feeling called love can vanish within seconds and turn into hatred. Was that love?

If you ask me, I would say NO.  It wasn’t love. It is compulsive attachment.  It is said that the exact same part of your brain that activates when you are in love is the exact part of brain that activates when you are high on cocaine. So, the pain and pleasures that a lot of us go through when we are in relationship makes us feel alive but it’s terrible. That’s not love. That is addiction and attachment.

So, what is love? I believe that everybody, especially if you are in a personal relationship with someone, you should strive to the higher form of love. It’s about time we grow up. The idea of one man or one woman will satisfy all of your needs is totally selfish and unfair. Think of someone who can fix you or that you can fix someone who is going wrong. It’s about tolerating your partner. One change themselves for their partner and so does the other partner. Love is an inside job. In order to love others, we must first love ourselves. We have to mature in a way that we can take care of our own emotional needs. We can help ourselves. In that way, we can accept the flaws of our partners because we have already accepted flaws in ourselves.

We should not fix our partner. That is because fixing implies that there is something is wrong. You shouldn’t fix your partner. You don’t love them for who they are. You tend to love them for what you think they could be. That is wrong and selfish. You have to know where you are in your life and should know that you can improve in the future. Once you do that, you can give your partner the same respect. There is no more anger or controlling in this type of love. There is a relaxed acceptance.

You are no more falling in love. You allow yourself to be open enough to let love fall into you. So, you become an instrument of love. When you become an instrument of love, you no longer care whether you get it back or not. That’s just who you are. You just love. I don’t know if the whole soulmates thingy exist or not. But I do know that the phrase ‘soulmates’ itself explains that you have to be a soul in order to realize this. And when you are reflecting the true self of you, you no longer reflecting anger, pain, your past experiences or your ego. That’s when love blossoms because that the soul’s only expression is pure love. And I think that when two souls come to this understanding, that’s beautiful and rare. It is something that we all should strive for.

So… If you don’t know how to love, most probably you will inevitably destroy it because it’s like trying to be a master carpenter. If you don’t know how to use the tools correctly chances are, you injure yourself or you might even cut your hand.