As much as I'm an advocate for love, I've come to the conclusion for many years now that love isn't enough. The famous Beatles song "All You Need Is Love" and other similarly related messages claiming that love can solve your problems, that love can conquer all is, quite frankly, bullshit. Yes, love does have amazing qualities that can bring people together in harmony. Yes, it's undeniable that love is something rare, and that a spark between two people isn't just coincidence...but I really don't believe it's love that keeps people together. Love is something that you can discover with someone else, someone you realize you get along with amazingly well, that shares some indescribable something that makes you want to spend all your time with them and never wanting them to leave your side, but love isn't just that. It isn't just the feeling you share with someone. You can't base a romantic relationship solely on love, and love isn't whats going to keep you together for all eternity. It's respect, understanding, communication, sacrifice, and most importantly, hard work that makes a solid relationship. Not love.
I don't know when I came to this kind of idea about love. It was probably in middle school. There was a time where I was talking to my mom, and I realized something. My mom and dad have worked hard all their lives, and they've always taught me the importance of hard work, that hard work can get you further in life that intelligence can. Somehow, I took this lesson and applied it to how I thought about love. I guess what it comes down to is that hard work can get you anywhere, and only after hard work is not enough is where intelligence and love come into play. If you don't work hard in the first place, love won't get you anywhere.
There are many forms of love, and I'd like to believe that I've felt a good amount of them throughout my short 19 years. There have been moments when I realized how much I really love my family, how much I love my friends, and I'd like to think that I've felt even a romantic kind of love. I've been fortunate to not have lost any important relationships in my life with someone, and from each one of my relationships I've learned that hard work is maybe just as important as love itself. If you have problems with someone, it won't be solved because you love that person. It is because you love that person that you're willing to put in the effort to make things work. Your love for someone makes you want to sacrifice your own well-being for the sake of your loved one. When people reach this point, I think it's a sign of true love. Romantic love isn't going to last forever. I can't really imagine and old couple still having a kind of "spark" with each other after spending probably 30+ years together. At the time where romantic love fizzles, true love grows...because you choose to stay with that person because you care about them and you love them for who they are, not how they make you feel so much anymore. And come on...that's true love, isn't it?
Yeah I totally agree. I never really got it until now, I'm in my first relationship and we're 8 months in, which is past the honeymoon phase, which means we have to actually work on our relationship to make it work. I like to think of relationships as a living organism (kind of like the love fern!) it takes work, a flower won't stay beautiful by just laying there, you have to put it in water and give it sunlight to survive!
ReplyDeleteI have massive commitment issues to I can't really relate to your blog, but that was really enlightening! Though I haven't been able to hold a serious relationship, most of my best friends have been in them and I can see just from that, that it takes a lot of work to make everything work. I hope I can actually stick it out and do that someday, soon haha.
ReplyDeleteIf you get older, you would know that love is everything.
ReplyDeleteI LOVED this blog of yours. I really believe that pretty much everything you say in this blog is true. I'm a huge sap when it comes to those cheesy affections of love, but I completely agree that once the "honeymoon" stage is over, it is about putting in the effort to make this work and that love is something that goes in with that.
ReplyDelete"It's respect, understanding, communication, sacrifice, and most importantly, hard work that makes a solid relationship. Not love." This comment is outrageous. Love encompasses all of those things and it is enough to base everything else off. You need an understanding of what love really is in order to have a healthy relationship. Personally, I think the ultimate standard of love is the standard given to us biblically, of true, selfless, agape love.
ReplyDeleteMaybe what it comes down to is TRUE love will encompass respect, understanding, communication, sacrifice, and hard work. Like Maria and Maggie mentioned, the honeymoon stage is the common feeling of floating and fleeting love that people think about when they think about what love is, and what I'm saying is that kind of love doesn't last. If you're going to look for that idealistic love that makes you feel like you're floating along the clouds, you're not going to find it because that kind of love doesn't stick around without a good amount of effort put into it later on.
ReplyDeleteMy parents always say that the biggest parts of any relationship are communication and respect. I agree with everything you're saying after the honeymoon phase it is definitely work to stay together.
ReplyDeleteYou have a bold font on TWO words...
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you're saying. Love is nowhere near enough. It just definitely helps the process.
ReplyDeleteYeah Love just helps it is not everything though.
ReplyDeleteI've always kind of felt that people overuse the word, and in not knowing what it really means, gives the whole process of falling and being in love a bad name, makes it seem overrated. It is a good feeling, and I tend to agree with Hyuntae, not that I am at the point yet, or believe I will ever get there, but it is everything, for those who have it. Anyway, what I really wanted to say is that you should read the book The Shadow of the Wind, great book.
ReplyDelete