Love is sometimes used to explain pleasure.
“I love chocolate chip cookies.” Or to express an intention, “I’d love to have this or that.” To measure how much we care for someone. Or in some of the songs we hear: “I’m hooked on your love.”
What is the true definition of love? I’m sure if you asked 100 people for their definition you’d get a hundred different answers. Some might say: love is happiness. Love is caring for another. Love is sharing. Love is caring for yourself. Love is having compassion.
For a moment I’d like to ask you to just put all your beliefs aside and just consider another approach to understanding love. I’m not asking you to believe me here, but just to have an open mind and see if this rings true for you.
Certainly, if you asked most of the religions and spiritual teachers from around the world, I’m sure you would find that at least one thing they all agreed upon is that “God is love.”
If God is love, than love was there in the beginning, it is still here now, and it shall be for all time. …and it is everywhere at once.
If love is everywhere than love must be present in Europe, in Africa, behind prison walls and inside every home.
If love is everywhere it must also be inside every atom. If love is inside of every atom and we are made of atoms, then we must also be made of love. If love is in every human being, then that love must be equal for the prisoner and the guard, the priest and the congregation, the parent and the child, for the enlightened and the ignorant, even for the Christian and the Atheist.
Love is the same on Sunday as it is on Wednesday…and December or July wouldn’t matter either. Love would also have to be present when you are happy or sad, rich or poor. If love is always present in all things all the time, then maybe the truth is that everything exists “in” love. Love is not only “in” us, but rather we are “in” love.
We may define love as compassion, caring, giving, sharing, making love. This is perhaps the reason that we love so many things. I love my boat. I love my cat. I love fishing.
Because joy and love are inseparable, we have an experience of love anytime we enjoy something or even looking forward to enjoying something. If I enjoy fishing, therefore I am in a state of joy, or love, when I am fishing.
The problem arises when we begin to believe that the things we enjoy…fishing, is the source of love itself.
Love then turns into an attached form of love. “I love fishing.”
When we become romantically involved in a relationship, it is because we enjoy certain things about that person. Since they are the source of the joy, we believe they are also the source of the love, so we say I am in love with you.
Simple truth is, if you want to experience more love then work for things that will create more joy. If you want the other person in a relationship to be more loving then simply help them to experience more joy. When either person in the relationship does something that they truly enjoy, they naturally become more loving…and lovable. And the other person will experience more love as a result.
This is because their enjoyable experience, whatever it might be, will make the person more aware of the experience that we call love. And he/she will naturally share that experience with everyone in their presence without even trying.
The love that we are all seek is right there all the time. It can’t be lost. It can’t be separated from you. In fact it is you!
Remember, when you do what you do with love, you will eventually have only what you love in your life.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Read more posts by Jim Britt, author, internationally recognized speaker and peak performance specialist.
