Hello Hannah,

I don’t think that we are negative about love, but I do think that our society struggles with “love”.  The word itself is overused and often inappropriately. We say things like “I just love your new hair cut!” or “I love ketchup on my fries!” Is that what we really mean though? Is love such a generic and simple thing that we can express it in this way? I don’t think it should be like that. Love as an emotion has become so watered down and is quickly and easily expressed as such. I think that love should be reserved for when a relationship is truly worthy.

Anita talks about the love of a child and his parents. This is an important love, and one that is often taken for granted.  Every parent loves their child, right? Every child also loves their parents, right?  Nope…  The world is an imperfect place filled with imperfect people, so it’s actually quite common that this basic need for genuine love in a child/parent relationship is lacking, and believe me, it has horrible consequences. So if you can, be thankful for the love that you have with your parents, and if you can’t, you may need some help establishing healthy love in your other relationships.

Love in a romantic relationship seems to be among the top priorities in our society today, but again, due to the imperfections of humans we find ourselves gambling to find what we hope is love. As simple animals our primal instincts encourage us to find partners to reproduce, but society and civilization has created expectations of what is acceptable behavior and we have been programmed to believe. This worries me because as you stated this makes people feel that they’ve “found the rest of your life”, “Nothing else matters as long as I have them.” ” It’s so beautiful how one person can truly make or break you.” “Love is the one constant we have.” When these things are not true. That is not love. That is codependency. You should never depend on another person to find your happiness. No other person should wield so much power over you to be able to define your life. such love is fleeting at best, with a hope that it will eventually grow into something long lasting.

The love that you should seek first and foremost is love of self. This can be a difficult task because there is no simple and standard path to self love. But once you can truly love yourself and put yourself first in fulfilling your life, so many other opportunities are presented to love otheres and genuinely be loved by them.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hold-me-tight/201006/can-love-last-lifetime

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/get-hardy/201203/seven-step-prescription-self-love

Just my thoughts, and a couple of links to articles I found appropriate starting places…

Wishing you health and happiness,

Ramone