Romantic love starts with a powerful feeling and ends with a powerful will. Two must work together in order for it to work and to last. The reason why romances are so short-lived these days is because the later is severely lacking. We feel to love, but not always will to love.
All human loves, eros included, reside mostly in the will, and partly in the feeling. Love is located in the will so that when the feeling of affection is no longer present, people can continue to love; it is found in the will so that people can love their enemies.
Lovers do sometimes turn into enemies. “The more I love you, the more I hate you,” goes a Chinese pop song. With a strong will to love, we can even love the enemies who share the same bed with us. If love is all feeling but little or no will, the Lord Jesus would never had commanded his disciples to love their enemies.
Why go through such trouble just to love? You may ask. Love is to be enjoyed, not to be endured. You are right. But unless you are willing to endure the hardship that comes with love, you will never get to enjoy the sweetness of love. People who give up too easily will never get to taste the fruit of a love relationship.
For romantic love to come to fruition, it has less to do with the person whom you love than your commitment to love itself. The thrill of falling in love is so much like leaping into a cool pond on a hot summer day (credit this idea to C.S Lewis), but after you are in it, you must start swimming, and during the course the fuzzy feeling of love may or may not be there, but you still have to swim just the same, no matter how tired you are. People who continue to seek the initial feeling of leaping into the pond by diving into a new exotic swimming hole will end up not knowing what love really is. Love isn’t just candle light dinners and moonlit walks; it is composed of changing dirty diapers and pushing strollers, sleepless nights and wearisome days, guts and tears, and thousands of apologies and forgiveness. Love is not for the faint-hearted and half-hearted. If you are not willing to suffer for love, you are not sufficient to love.
So switching the partner of your romantic interest may not be the answer, for all ponds are pretty much equally deep and leaping into them basically yields the same feeling. It is what we do after the feeling is no longer there that really counts. If love fails, blame yourself first, for you may not be fit to love. You blame your partner too readily and give up too easily.
2 comments:
Absolutely true.
"it is composed of changing dirty diapers and pushing strollers, sleepless nights and wearisome days, guts and tears, and thousands of apologies and forgiveness."
Absolutely true.
Post a Comment