Love
One of the most powerful feelings that a person might experience is love. Although other feelings such as grief and depression may come strongly in some instances, love has proven more than once that it always wins. Different forms of love exist depending on the interpretation that someone decides to use. Human beings are social beings, and love comes in as a way of strengthening the social bond existing among people. Generally, love opens doors for other aspects of life, such as care, honesty, and even integrity. The general idea of love is to create happiness among people and to see that everyone is allowed to live their lives without compromise. Love involves a set of emotions, feelings, behaviors, and even beliefs that are associated with a strong feeling of affection towards a person or something.
The definition of love differs significantly among people with a set of feelings ranging from plutonic, romantic, fleeting, and lifelong to parental. The definition depends on the goal of the feelings associated with the person giving the definition (Mirsu-Paun & Oliver, 2017). For example, plutonic love is defined as a set of feelings that makes people grow intimate and close but does not involve sexual feelings. Parental love, on the other hand, involves situations where a parent feels obliged to take care of and protect their child without a requirement of payment. Therefore, getting a single definition of love might be difficult as each situation brings out a different definition. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Love can be defined as a self-driven aspect with people taking it as a basic need. The need to be loved develops naturally by the fact of being a human being. For example, a child is born without the knowledge of what love is and continues to learn as they grow. However, the child shows a need for love in the way they find comfort in the hands of their caregiver. The fact that a child needs love to grow despite not knowing what love is shows that the need for love is deeper than human understanding (Danesi, 2019). On the other hand, the need to give love is developed from within and goes beyond the satisfaction of the person to whom love is given. Giving love benefits even the person giving love because they tend to get a feeling of satisfaction in knowing that they have made a person or people happy.
The significance of love grows every time society grows to involve itself in issues not driven by love. Generally, the worst feeling that can ever happen is to be taken away from love. The feeling of rejection has been associated with severe cases of depression as people grow unloved and stop loving themselves. However, the lack of love has been misinterpreted to show that love might hurt. For example, romantic relationships have, on several occasions, turned sour, making people depressed, and questioned have been asked on whether love could hurt (Mirsu-Paun & Oliver, 2017). However, the misunderstanding cannot be allowed to taint the purity of love and its ability to provide peace and comfort. What happens in romantic relationships is that expectations might not be met, and betrayals might happen. Therefore, what hurts people in romantic relationships is the need to be loved, and failure to receive the same love as given. Besides, being hurt because of love is sufficient evidence that love is significant and that people deserve to be loved. Moreover, love is the binding force for any society as laws cannot promise comfort and protection.
Love is a great ingredient in the development of a strong society. People learn to live together, not because they are forced by law but because a feeling of love makes them take care of each other. Other aspects, such as laws, come in to ensure that love is maintained and that people are allowed to live harmoniously. For example, love will allow a person to return a lost sheep to its owner without a requirement for payment (Field, 2016). Also, love will lead a parent to help another parent’s child cross the road without a requirement for any compensation. Generally, love ensures that a society grows strong, and people are considerate of the feelings of each other and that no one harms the other. Also, love makes people determined to promote love within themselves by discouraging actions that might take away the spirit of love. For example, people in society might come together to condemn insecurity cases and help criminals reform instead of having them executed. Generally, societies are built by love with help from other aspects, such as law and morals. Moreover, love can also be expressed through relationships and marriage.
Sexual relationships and marriage are a result of love. Most people fail in the relationship sector, either for keeping their expectations too high or by having the wrong perspectives on love. The primary consideration in any kind of relationship is love. The journey to marriage starts with friendship and a relationship. With love, relationships tend to last while they break when love is lost. One of the common mistakes done in relationships is coming together for the wrong reasons. For example, people might start a relationship because of money and not love. Such a relationship is bound to last only for the period when money is still available. However, the argument of love for money should not be used to mean that people should not consider money as a factor before falling in love. Generally, love should be prioritized over everything for a relationship to work. Moreover, the language of love differs among people, and everyone desires to know the language that works for their situation.
Love is expressed through different languages, and one of them is through words of affirmation. Daily activities make people interact with people with whom they might not be related. However, the lack of a relationship does not put a boundary on love (Johnson, 2017). There exist several ways of showing love to people without being deep about it. For example, being appreciative goes a long way in showing love as it makes someone happy. A person may use affirmative words by complementing others or even thanking them after they help with something. The language of affirmative words can also apply to people in romantic relationships. For example, appreciating one’s partner might show one’s love at different levels. People need to learn to use affirmative words in a bid to keep love lively and avoid taking everything for granted. Moreover, acts of service might be used as a language of love and work fine in strengthening the relationships between people.
Acts of service form a strong language of love that can help in developing love between people. Some people love others simply by the service they give to them. For example, a woman’s love for her husband might be based on the few services he does to her. Some acts of service include helping with cooking and doing dishes. Although such actions might appear normal for some people, they might speak volumes on how an individual cares for their partner (Johnson, 2017). In relationships, people should understand their partner’s taste on acts of service as that will help to improve the relationship and love for each other. Lack of understanding may have disastrous impacts where one person fails to see the love from the other person. Love is always built through understanding each other, and cases of misunderstanding should not be allowed to come between people who love each other. Moreover, one of the common forms of love is one that comes with selflessness and the desire to see others happy irrespective of personal happiness.
Love leads people to grow selfless and only consider making other people happy. However, self-love should not be considered as selfishness. Some people pay too much attention to other people’s happiness to the extent of forgetting self-development (Danesi, 2019). The desire to love other people comes from the heart and should not push people into forgetting the role of self-love. Besides, showing love to other people benefits both parties involved. The recipients benefit from the selflessness of the giver, while the giver benefits from satisfaction. Generally, showing love takes a large portion of sacrifice, and the amount of sacrifice defines the amount of love given. People have to choose between sacrificing or remaining selfish, although sacrifice should not be taken as an obligation. The dilemma of sacrifice and selflessness leads to a further dilemma on self-love and self-development.
Self-love and self-development have been used severally when people talk about love. A debate, however, comes out where people bring out different interpretations of the two aspects. Some people interpret self-love as a situation where one is contented with their current state, and self-improvement is a show that one does not love their current state (Ryan, Deci & Vansteenkiste, 2016). Another group believes that self-love is the desire to achieve the best that self-development is the best way of upholding self-love. However, the debate can be solved by viewing love from an outside perception. Loving someone means that the best is needed for them. Therefore, self-love should be viewed as a situation where one wants the best for themselves. Therefore, self-development should be seen as a way of developing a better self and not hating the current state.
In sum, love involves a set of emotions, feelings, behaviors, and even beliefs that are associated with a strong feeling of affection towards a person or something. The definition of love depends on the goal of the feelings associated with the person giving the definition. People learn to live together, not because they are forced by law but because a feeling of love makes them take care of each other. Generally, the language of love differs among people, and everyone desires to know the language that works for their situation.
References
Danesi, M. (2019). The Language of Love. In The Semiotics of Love (pp. 57-82). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Field, T. (2016). Romantic Love. Int J Behav Res Psychol, 4(3), 185-190.
Johnson, S. (2017). Deciphering the language of love. Scientific American MIND.
Mirsu-Paun, A., & Oliver, J. A. (2017). How much does love really hurt? Psychopathology and romantic relationships: A meta-analysis. European Psychiatry, 41, S696.
Ryan, R. M., Deci, E. L., & Vansteenkiste, M. (2016). Autonomy and autonomy disturbances in self‐development and psychopathology: Research on motivation, attachment, and clinical process. Developmental psychopathology, 1-54.