Recently I've been thinking about love. What is it? How to get it? Why do we even want it? And other related questions.
This is going to be rather 'stream of consciousness' and I hope it makes sense but here's what I think ...
My thinking today started because of something one of my friends posted on Facebook, he said:
"Pain makes you stronger. Fear makes you braver. Heartbreak makes you wiser.An interesting fact of life is that almost everyone experiences heartbreak on some levels that is enough to strip them of the innocence that they once had. Heartbreak is a part of life that will definitely change a person, the decision is made by the person who's heart is broken of whether they let the heartbreak make them a better person or if they let it make them a nobody.Everything that we experience in our lives should be used as a learning experience, whether the experience is a painful experience or whether it is an uplifting experience. When we go through an experience as troubling as having our hearts broken, we must look at it as something that we can learn from, and something that we can overcome. Never let your being broken discourage you enough to pass on opportunities that may really benefit you. Remain as strong as possible, while it is fine to grieve, never stop moving forward." (Elvis - not the King, the other one - the one that is my friend.)
I thought about this and then I thought some more. It has helped me pull together the different strands of my thinking on this topic.
I think all actions are prompted by the existence of love or by a lack of love. Let me give some examples to see if I can explain what I mean. Starting with the negative. As stated by Elvis, everybody experiences some heart break in their lives.
For a lot of people that heart break causes them to shrink into themselves. They try to protect their hearts by not letting anyone know when they love. The thinking is "If I don't let *insert name of loved person here* know that I love them until I have found out whether they love me, then I won't be hurt again." The problem with that approach is that it leads to a lot of people who love each other secretly but never actually act on their love. And love that is not acted on, not given away, fades and dies. Maybe to become a habit, a stifled shadow of the real substance that no longer exists.
Or maybe they go to the extreme of thinking, "Love hurts, so I won't love anyone ever again," and they build walls around their hearts and refuse to let anyone in very far. This is not a happy existence. To deny love is to deny the source of life.
Or they think some other thing that causes them to deny access to love in their lives. The number of justifications for living a loveless life is as many and varied as there are people living that way.
When a person closes his or her heart to love they then act out in ways they believe will protect their heart. It is my theory that all actions that cause hurt to another person are caused by a loveless person trying to protect their heart and make themselves feel better.
The person who selfishly takes more than their fair share of something is trying to protect them self from the bad feelings lovelessness brings by filling the hole in their heart with other things.
The person who gossips is trying to make themselves feel better by pulling someone else down.
The person who has affairs believes they will experience more love in a new source. They see the new love as a balm for an older lack of love.
In almost every case where one person hurts another person, the first person is not thinking of the person they hurt, all they are thinking is; "How can I protect myself? How can I feel loved?"
(Yes there are some cases where people deliberately set out to hurt others, but even in those cases I believe it is caused by a heart that has been closed to love.)
So what about the positive? It is my theory that every good/positve/helpful action is caused by the presence of love in a life. I feel loved so I will share my love with others.
It could be as simple as smiling at a person as you walk down the street, or as complicated as organising a grand surprise for a friend. Maybe it is taking the time to talk to someone who is hurting, or accepting and eating the slimy candy a child gives you like it's the best delicacy in the world. Love is outward focused, it flows through a person and brings happiness to those around them.
So what exactly is love? I believe that love is action and an attitude. It is acting in a way that will benefit another person, regardless of the way you feel or your own best interests. But it is acting in that way with a willing and happy heart.
Many people act in what appears to be a loving way, but they do it because they think it is the right thing to do, almost as if they are forced to, not willingly. That is not love. That is just another way that people try to protect themselves. If I always do the right thing, no matter what, then I won't feel guilty, I am justified in my actions, and I won't hurt."
It was with all these things in mind that I wrote my reply to Elvis's post.
What Elvis says is true - people can have one of two responses to
heartache, either they can close down and love very guardedly - if at
all, or they can learn to accept the pain as part of life and move on.
I
have a friend who reguarly tells me to protect my heart, and I tell him
it's quiet safe. And it is. But possibly not in the way he means.
It is my opinion that love is the primary need of every person. Above and before any other need, including food, shelter, safety and purpose. I think all actions are prompted by the existence of love or by a lack of love. Let me give some examples to see if I can explain what I mean. Starting with the negative. As stated by Elvis, everybody experiences some heart break in their lives.
For a lot of people that heart break causes them to shrink into themselves. They try to protect their hearts by not letting anyone know when they love. The thinking is "If I don't let *insert name of loved person here* know that I love them until I have found out whether they love me, then I won't be hurt again." The problem with that approach is that it leads to a lot of people who love each other secretly but never actually act on their love. And love that is not acted on, not given away, fades and dies. Maybe to become a habit, a stifled shadow of the real substance that no longer exists.
Or maybe they go to the extreme of thinking, "Love hurts, so I won't love anyone ever again," and they build walls around their hearts and refuse to let anyone in very far. This is not a happy existence. To deny love is to deny the source of life.
Or they think some other thing that causes them to deny access to love in their lives. The number of justifications for living a loveless life is as many and varied as there are people living that way.
When a person closes his or her heart to love they then act out in ways they believe will protect their heart. It is my theory that all actions that cause hurt to another person are caused by a loveless person trying to protect their heart and make themselves feel better.
The person who selfishly takes more than their fair share of something is trying to protect them self from the bad feelings lovelessness brings by filling the hole in their heart with other things.
The person who gossips is trying to make themselves feel better by pulling someone else down.
The person who has affairs believes they will experience more love in a new source. They see the new love as a balm for an older lack of love.
In almost every case where one person hurts another person, the first person is not thinking of the person they hurt, all they are thinking is; "How can I protect myself? How can I feel loved?"
(Yes there are some cases where people deliberately set out to hurt others, but even in those cases I believe it is caused by a heart that has been closed to love.)
So what about the positive? It is my theory that every good/positve/helpful action is caused by the presence of love in a life. I feel loved so I will share my love with others.
It could be as simple as smiling at a person as you walk down the street, or as complicated as organising a grand surprise for a friend. Maybe it is taking the time to talk to someone who is hurting, or accepting and eating the slimy candy a child gives you like it's the best delicacy in the world. Love is outward focused, it flows through a person and brings happiness to those around them.
So what exactly is love? I believe that love is action and an attitude. It is acting in a way that will benefit another person, regardless of the way you feel or your own best interests. But it is acting in that way with a willing and happy heart.
Many people act in what appears to be a loving way, but they do it because they think it is the right thing to do, almost as if they are forced to, not willingly. That is not love. That is just another way that people try to protect themselves. If I always do the right thing, no matter what, then I won't feel guilty, I am justified in my actions, and I won't hurt."
It was with all these things in mind that I wrote my reply to Elvis's post.
"You know what, having my heart broken has taught me that I won't die from sadness. I've decided that I'm not going to try to protect my heart any more. That's God's job. I'm just going to love everybody. If they choose not to love me back then they are the ones who miss out."
That is exactly how I feel. I've lived the life where my heart was closed to love, where I did everything I could to protect my own heart, living in fear that someone would break through and destroy me. It is a sad and soulless place to be. And now I've also lived the life where I have loved but that love was not accepted. It hurt, but it's ok, there is no requirement that the person you love must love you back, and I didn't die. And if I made a comparison I would categorically state that the life of self protection hurts more than the life of rejected love.
Anyway, after I posted my reply to Elvis I started wondering. I wonder if there are degrees of love?
And my answer to that question is both yes and no.
No, because as I said love is both an action and an attitude. In my thinking you either have the attitude or you do not, you either carry out the actions or you do not. You either love, or you do not. However I know that this is not the full story.
Hence the yes, let me try to explain.
Firstly from the point of view of the lovee - the person accepting the love. There are definite degrees in the amount of love that people are willing and able to accept. One person is open and can accept as much love as you are able to give, another is all walled up and unable to accept any love. You smile at them and they think "What's wrong with her?"
Secondly from the point of view of the lover - the person giving the love. Love can't be stored except in memory, and if the memory of love is all you have it will run out. I see love as a continual flow, as I receive love, I am able to give love. Therefore while I may love, my ability to pass on that love is limited by my ability to receive love. The cool thing is that as I let love flow through me the action of loving cleans up the pipeline, allowing more love to flow. If I determine to love, even when it hurts then my old hurts are themselve healed and I am able to love more deeply. This becomes an upward spiral of love, joy and happiness.
A second distinction that needs to be made is between general love and personal love.
General love is the love we give to all living beings, maybe best summarised by the idea that "I will do no harm to any living thing and where possible I will uplift my fellow man."
General love is smiling at the man you see sitting opposite you on the train each morning, acknowledging his existence. Or it could be stopping to help the lady who has had the bottom fall out of her shopping bag, it costs you a few minutes of time but it makes her life that much easier. It could be giving a dinner to a homeless person or a flower to a child, making both feel loved and cared for. It is the small things we do for strangers and acquaintances that cost us little and are their own reward.
General love is disinterested, by this I mean it is love that does not expect anything in return. We give out of our love to another being and we trust the love will come back to us from another source. We do not expect anything from the person we practice our love on.
Personal love is the love we invest in our friends and families. The costs of personal love are higher than the costs of general love, but so are the rewards. Because with personal love, the love we give out is returned.
The problem with personal love is that it often changes from disinterested love to interested love. We form expectations about what the person we are loving will do for us. And that will lead to hurt, which can lead to those walls coming down and the love pipe closing and then instead of love spiralling up with joy and healing, a lack of love begins to spiral down with sadness and harm.
The solution to this problem is to stay far far away from expectations, to simply love the person with your whole heart and to accept with pleasure whatever love they are willing and able to give you, but not be upset if they are unable or unwilling to accept or return your love to the same degree.
My thought is that close friendships form as people find they are matching each other in the amount of love they are giving and receiving.
And then of course there is marriage. Which is a whole other complicated topic. Complicated because so many things must be taken into account when deciding who to marry; character, personality, sense of humour, etc, etc etc. And the items on that list are as varied as their are people looking for marriage partners. My thought is that all the things on our lists are the things that make one person easier to love than another.
For all that it is complicated, I also think it is very simple. Love and marriage grow out of personal friendships that become deeper and stronger until you cannot imagine living without that person. You won't die if you have to live without them, but you'll be way way way happier with them.
Now I want to back track just a little - but I will be returning to the topic of love and marriage soon enough.
Where does love come from? Like I said I think that with us humans love flows through us, it does not originate in us. We are too selfish by nature to originate love. I believe that love comes from God. That He is the ultimate source of all the love that flows around our planet. I know some of my friends and readers will not agree with that statement, and that's ok, I will never force you to agree with me. but that is what I have experienced and what I believe with my entire heart.
And now back to love and marriage. Wasn't that quick ;-)
This bit is for my three faithful readers if they manage to get this far down on my post. I have decided I actually do want to get married - babies however are optional. I know how much work is involved in looking after them, also am somewhat weary of the whole child birth experience. However to my three faithful readers, you can put out a good word for me and funnel likely suitors in my direction - please :-) There I'm giving all you potential matchmakers permission to act on my behalf. That should make my Mum and sister very happy.
In pursuit of this goal of getting married I have decided I will say 'Yes' to going out on at least one date with any man who asks me; as long as he meets four easy criteria.
1. He must be an SDA in good standing. I just don't see the point in dating anyone outside of my religion seeing as I would never consider marrying outside of my religion.
2. He must be brave enough to actually ask me out. And he'll have to do it directly, probably with words of only one syllable, because if he beats around the bush, or tries to hint or something, I probably won't even notice he is hinting, let alone figure out what the hint is supposed to be. (Actually I think all this talk of intuition and perception is just a fancy way of saying "I have a good imagination and sometimes I imagine right.") However surely it can't be to hard to say "Cat, would you like to have dinner with me?" When a guy already knows I'm going to say yes? At least the first time. Subsequent yes's will depend on the first experience. And it doesn't have to be dinner, could be some other activity that he feels would be of interest to both of us. (Now obviously the lack of difficulty is only going to apply to interested men who have actually read my blog, and since I know my three faithful readers are all female I guess you will just have to funnel interesting men to my blog for me.)
3. He must be able to afford to pay for suggested dinner or other activity. Since if we split the cost then it is not a date, it is just hanging out.
4. He must speak enough English so that we can actually have a conversation. I don't demand perfection but I don't want to have to guess at every second word he is saying.
Like I said, for the duration of this experiment I'll go out with any man who meets those four criteria. Race, age, personality, appearance and sense of humour do not eliminate anybodies chances on the first round.
However if my lovely matchmaking faithful readers want to be more discriminating in their choice of men to send my way, here is what I'm looking for in a husband.
Cat's Husband List - Part 1: NON-negotiable!!!
1. Must love God more than anything else - including me - and be in the process of allowing God to change him into His image.
2. Must have a good character - honest, kind, gentle, generous, humble, etc.
3. Must be smart. I'm sorry this sounds harsh but I can't do stupid, not for a husband. For the record smart does not mean 'educated.' I know lots of people with university degrees who are stupid. Smart means he has a brain and he's not afraid to use it.
Cat's Husband List - Part 2: Wouldn't It Be Nice ...
4. Rich - because plenty of money is always nice, but it is not necessary. I can be just as happy poor as rich.
5. Handsome - the proverbial tall, dark, looks like Pierce Brosnan with green eyes version of handsome :-) having said that, the last three guys I was attracted to were nothing like that - actually they were all short and kind of ugly - sorry guys - but they had great brains!!!! The brains do it for me every time.
The End Of My List.
So my three faithful readers, are you up for the task?
Anyway, after I posted my reply to Elvis I started wondering. I wonder if there are degrees of love?
And my answer to that question is both yes and no.
No, because as I said love is both an action and an attitude. In my thinking you either have the attitude or you do not, you either carry out the actions or you do not. You either love, or you do not. However I know that this is not the full story.
Hence the yes, let me try to explain.
Firstly from the point of view of the lovee - the person accepting the love. There are definite degrees in the amount of love that people are willing and able to accept. One person is open and can accept as much love as you are able to give, another is all walled up and unable to accept any love. You smile at them and they think "What's wrong with her?"
Secondly from the point of view of the lover - the person giving the love. Love can't be stored except in memory, and if the memory of love is all you have it will run out. I see love as a continual flow, as I receive love, I am able to give love. Therefore while I may love, my ability to pass on that love is limited by my ability to receive love. The cool thing is that as I let love flow through me the action of loving cleans up the pipeline, allowing more love to flow. If I determine to love, even when it hurts then my old hurts are themselve healed and I am able to love more deeply. This becomes an upward spiral of love, joy and happiness.
A second distinction that needs to be made is between general love and personal love.
General love is the love we give to all living beings, maybe best summarised by the idea that "I will do no harm to any living thing and where possible I will uplift my fellow man."
General love is smiling at the man you see sitting opposite you on the train each morning, acknowledging his existence. Or it could be stopping to help the lady who has had the bottom fall out of her shopping bag, it costs you a few minutes of time but it makes her life that much easier. It could be giving a dinner to a homeless person or a flower to a child, making both feel loved and cared for. It is the small things we do for strangers and acquaintances that cost us little and are their own reward.
General love is disinterested, by this I mean it is love that does not expect anything in return. We give out of our love to another being and we trust the love will come back to us from another source. We do not expect anything from the person we practice our love on.
Personal love is the love we invest in our friends and families. The costs of personal love are higher than the costs of general love, but so are the rewards. Because with personal love, the love we give out is returned.
The problem with personal love is that it often changes from disinterested love to interested love. We form expectations about what the person we are loving will do for us. And that will lead to hurt, which can lead to those walls coming down and the love pipe closing and then instead of love spiralling up with joy and healing, a lack of love begins to spiral down with sadness and harm.
The solution to this problem is to stay far far away from expectations, to simply love the person with your whole heart and to accept with pleasure whatever love they are willing and able to give you, but not be upset if they are unable or unwilling to accept or return your love to the same degree.
My thought is that close friendships form as people find they are matching each other in the amount of love they are giving and receiving.
And then of course there is marriage. Which is a whole other complicated topic. Complicated because so many things must be taken into account when deciding who to marry; character, personality, sense of humour, etc, etc etc. And the items on that list are as varied as their are people looking for marriage partners. My thought is that all the things on our lists are the things that make one person easier to love than another.
For all that it is complicated, I also think it is very simple. Love and marriage grow out of personal friendships that become deeper and stronger until you cannot imagine living without that person. You won't die if you have to live without them, but you'll be way way way happier with them.
Now I want to back track just a little - but I will be returning to the topic of love and marriage soon enough.
Where does love come from? Like I said I think that with us humans love flows through us, it does not originate in us. We are too selfish by nature to originate love. I believe that love comes from God. That He is the ultimate source of all the love that flows around our planet. I know some of my friends and readers will not agree with that statement, and that's ok, I will never force you to agree with me. but that is what I have experienced and what I believe with my entire heart.
And now back to love and marriage. Wasn't that quick ;-)
This bit is for my three faithful readers if they manage to get this far down on my post. I have decided I actually do want to get married - babies however are optional. I know how much work is involved in looking after them, also am somewhat weary of the whole child birth experience. However to my three faithful readers, you can put out a good word for me and funnel likely suitors in my direction - please :-) There I'm giving all you potential matchmakers permission to act on my behalf. That should make my Mum and sister very happy.
In pursuit of this goal of getting married I have decided I will say 'Yes' to going out on at least one date with any man who asks me; as long as he meets four easy criteria.
1. He must be an SDA in good standing. I just don't see the point in dating anyone outside of my religion seeing as I would never consider marrying outside of my religion.
2. He must be brave enough to actually ask me out. And he'll have to do it directly, probably with words of only one syllable, because if he beats around the bush, or tries to hint or something, I probably won't even notice he is hinting, let alone figure out what the hint is supposed to be. (Actually I think all this talk of intuition and perception is just a fancy way of saying "I have a good imagination and sometimes I imagine right.") However surely it can't be to hard to say "Cat, would you like to have dinner with me?" When a guy already knows I'm going to say yes? At least the first time. Subsequent yes's will depend on the first experience. And it doesn't have to be dinner, could be some other activity that he feels would be of interest to both of us. (Now obviously the lack of difficulty is only going to apply to interested men who have actually read my blog, and since I know my three faithful readers are all female I guess you will just have to funnel interesting men to my blog for me.)
3. He must be able to afford to pay for suggested dinner or other activity. Since if we split the cost then it is not a date, it is just hanging out.
4. He must speak enough English so that we can actually have a conversation. I don't demand perfection but I don't want to have to guess at every second word he is saying.
Like I said, for the duration of this experiment I'll go out with any man who meets those four criteria. Race, age, personality, appearance and sense of humour do not eliminate anybodies chances on the first round.
However if my lovely matchmaking faithful readers want to be more discriminating in their choice of men to send my way, here is what I'm looking for in a husband.
Cat's Husband List - Part 1: NON-negotiable!!!
1. Must love God more than anything else - including me - and be in the process of allowing God to change him into His image.
2. Must have a good character - honest, kind, gentle, generous, humble, etc.
3. Must be smart. I'm sorry this sounds harsh but I can't do stupid, not for a husband. For the record smart does not mean 'educated.' I know lots of people with university degrees who are stupid. Smart means he has a brain and he's not afraid to use it.
Cat's Husband List - Part 2: Wouldn't It Be Nice ...
4. Rich - because plenty of money is always nice, but it is not necessary. I can be just as happy poor as rich.
5. Handsome - the proverbial tall, dark, looks like Pierce Brosnan with green eyes version of handsome :-) having said that, the last three guys I was attracted to were nothing like that - actually they were all short and kind of ugly - sorry guys - but they had great brains!!!! The brains do it for me every time.
The End Of My List.
So my three faithful readers, are you up for the task?
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