Can we ever get the love we expect?
The ever elusive love — we run behind it, move mountains to catch it and still it manages to escape. Even if we get lucky enough to catch hold of it, it wiggles out from our fingers when we least expect it. What makes this love so mysterious? Is it an enigma or we have been reading it all wrong?
Let’s go through the definition of love. Love as the dictionary defines it, is of two different kinds: platonic — ‘A quality or feeling of strong or constant affection for and dedication to another’, and sexual — ‘attraction based on sexual desire’. Most of us have felt the sexual love during our puberty, early adulthood and still feel it sometimes, if our hormones allow it. But that is not the kind of love we crave for most of our life (I am talking about the majority here).
The kind of love we all want
Mostly, we want the kind of love wherein we feel ‘thought of’ and ‘cared for’. The love which makes us feel that we are not alone, that someone understands us, accepts us, thinks about us and our needs, and cares about us. The love which keeps us safe and warm in our most difficult times. The love which gives us the time of day to listen to our worries, our dreams, and anything which bothers us or is important to us, without judging us. The love which appreciates us and sees us for who we are, and what all we do for them.
This is the love I am talking about here. Does one ever manage to find this kind of love, and even if one does, does it stay?
From all my experience and conversations with the people I meet, I have realized the answer is no. Most of us feel alone and not cared for. Most of us feel misunderstood, judged, unappreciated and undermined.
So what does it mean? Does it mean that love doesn’t exist? Is love just some hormones acting up which make us feel otherwise, and fades away along with them? Or is it just that it is meant only for a few lucky ones, and we are not one of them?
Are we expecting it from the right person?
I have thought a lot about it, and after many discussions with friends and family, and a lot of reflecting on the issue, I came to the conclusion that we are all wrong about it in the first place. We are wrong to expect ‘the real love’ from someone else.
I mean think about it, how much work and thought the love we are talking about needs. Yes, we can get that sort of love in bits and pieces. But to get that kind of attention and understanding always from someone is humanly implausible, if not impossible. If someone has to love someone that way, they sure won’t have anything else to do, or they themselves would be having a very smooth life without any tensions or worries of theirs to think about. And that is not the case in today’s fast paced world, where people don’t even have the time to take care of their needs, forget about others. And if by some magic, you even find that someone who can give you the time of the day, would they be able to really “get you”? Would they be able to see you for who you are? I mean people can only see us from the place they are standing at. They understand us, and judge us from their viewpoint, not ours.
Who can give us that ‘real’ love?
So, where does that leave us? Does that mean that one can’t feel loved? No, it means that we should not expect that love from someone else, we should give that love to ourself. We are the one who is most capable of understanding our own problems, needs, strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, feelings, intentions. No one in the world could understand us, know us better than we do, whoever they are. Yes having loved ones around is great, but their being there for us should be enough. Don’t expect the love and care, which we are meant to give ourself, from them.
So today let’s try and take that first step to love ourself the way we expect to be loved.
Let’s take the first step to loving self by knowing ourselves better, realize our strengths, accept our weaknesses, be less harsh on ourselves, let our mistakes go, let our past go, appreciate ourself, be kind to ourself, believe in ourself, make ourselves strong from the inside out and grow into a better person each day.
Let’s give ourselves all the love in the world, and say “I am here for you, always!”
