This month, I decided to touch on a subject that has been in the front of my mind lately, as well as many others that I am in contact with. Over the last few months, so many people around me have been finding love or working hard searching for it. I myself have been looking for that perfect person…that one individual that will make my heart sing. Corny, right? But I am a romantic at heart. So, with Cupid’s arrows being so insanely active lately, I decided to comment about love.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines love as “…a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.”
I liked this definition better than the others that I read because of the last few words, “a sense of underlying oneness.” This is a vital point about love that I think is sadly missed so often by so many. We focus on the second person involved in love, that we forget about the oneness, we forget about the connection…we forget about the self. We sacrifice ourselves, change, conform…not that any of that is necessarily a bad thing. Compromise goes a long way! But is it a valuable compromise if you are giving more than you are honestly willing to give, or changing something about yourself, your values, your personal moral code, for the sake of “love?”
So many of us have gotten caught up in the search for love that we settle for what we can get. Being with someone mediocre is better than being by yourself. Though that’s not true, that’s often the way that society looks at single people…if you are by yourself, you are incomplete, you are damaged. Culture has made the word “single” a dirty word. People are “singled out,” pulled out of the crowd and made to stand alone. You can get a “single” suite at a hotel, usually small, cramped, uncomfortable, and lacking the amenities of a larger room. A “single serving” isn’t very filling, is it? Have a new bed? A “single” mattress is barely big enough to sleep comfortably. Even Cingular, now AT&T, doesn’t want to be “singular”…ok so the last one is a bit of a stretch, but I think I have made my point. It took me nearly a year to not feel awkward going to a movie by myself or asking for a table for one at a restaurant. However, sacrificing myself or my standards for the sake of not being single is not worth it to me.
In searching for love to be defined, I looked to the East for some inspiration. In both Chinese and Japanese, the word for love is “ai.” Fantastic! How simple! Just two little roman letters to convey so much. The kanji for “ai” in both Chinese and Japanese is similar, both made of three distinct symbols: heart, hand and person. The very character “ai” tells us that love is holding someone close to your heart.
Love really is very simple, yet at the same time so incredibly complex. Lao Tzu said, “Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.”
Love is something we all want in our lives. It is something that makes us feel whole, complete, needed…loved! Love is passion. It makes people do crazy things. Desperate people try to control it. Perverts try to distort it. Our capitalist society tries to sell it. Poets and artists seek it out for inspiration. However, many times, we forget to look in ourselves to recognize it, and feel its true nature.
So many of us are searching for love, myself included. We are looking for that true happiness, that lasting connection. It is important as we look for love to remember that hurt and pain are part of life, and part of love. To know great love, you have to know what it is to be without that love as well. When you have the awful first date, or the awkward conversation…when you think you have finally grasped it, and it slips through your fingers, remember that it is not love’s fault. Love is about connecting. If you don’t have a connection, you don’t have love. So, keep searching for that match! If you love, you will find the connection, and continue to connect. Love is the affirmation.
Tao Te Ching, 36
If you hope to expand,
You should first contract.
If you hope to become strong,
You should first weaken yourself.
If your ambition is to be exalted,
Humiliation will follow.
If you hold fast to something,
It will surely be taken away from you.
This is the operation of the subtle law of the universe.
Let’s take a lesson from the Tao.
If you hope to expand, you must first contract.
So, if you hope to love, truly love, you must first take the energy of love inward. You must truly love yourself. As cheesy and after school special as that sounds, it’s very true. How do you know what you will expect in a partner or lover if you don’t know what you have and don’t have? To understand love is to first understand yourself.
If you hold fast to something, it will surely be taken away from you. This means that you have to let love flow in its own time. It’s that whole theory about squeezing a bird and making his eyes pop out…it is possible to love too much…that’s when we get into obsession, and no one likes a stalker. You can search for love. You can hold it in your arms, in your mind, in your dreams, in your heart…but remember that love needs room to breathe. And it is important to still remain an individual, even with the perfect story-book romance in your life.
Love is a funny thing. Sometimes we seek out a specific individual with specific qualities. Many times when we find those qualities in someone, we are sadly disappointed. Sometimes we cannot know what it is we need in a significant other until those qualities present themselves to us. Maybe not the package that you thought you would order, but sometimes the universe has different ideas. And it’s when you release the expectation and await the results…trusting that all will be right in the end, you might find that perfect match in someone totally surprising. And maybe, just maybe, be able to hold that person close to your heart.
Namaste,
~J
The American Heritage Dictionary defines love as “…a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.”
I liked this definition better than the others that I read because of the last few words, “a sense of underlying oneness.” This is a vital point about love that I think is sadly missed so often by so many. We focus on the second person involved in love, that we forget about the oneness, we forget about the connection…we forget about the self. We sacrifice ourselves, change, conform…not that any of that is necessarily a bad thing. Compromise goes a long way! But is it a valuable compromise if you are giving more than you are honestly willing to give, or changing something about yourself, your values, your personal moral code, for the sake of “love?”
So many of us have gotten caught up in the search for love that we settle for what we can get. Being with someone mediocre is better than being by yourself. Though that’s not true, that’s often the way that society looks at single people…if you are by yourself, you are incomplete, you are damaged. Culture has made the word “single” a dirty word. People are “singled out,” pulled out of the crowd and made to stand alone. You can get a “single” suite at a hotel, usually small, cramped, uncomfortable, and lacking the amenities of a larger room. A “single serving” isn’t very filling, is it? Have a new bed? A “single” mattress is barely big enough to sleep comfortably. Even Cingular, now AT&T, doesn’t want to be “singular”…ok so the last one is a bit of a stretch, but I think I have made my point. It took me nearly a year to not feel awkward going to a movie by myself or asking for a table for one at a restaurant. However, sacrificing myself or my standards for the sake of not being single is not worth it to me.
In searching for love to be defined, I looked to the East for some inspiration. In both Chinese and Japanese, the word for love is “ai.” Fantastic! How simple! Just two little roman letters to convey so much. The kanji for “ai” in both Chinese and Japanese is similar, both made of three distinct symbols: heart, hand and person. The very character “ai” tells us that love is holding someone close to your heart.
Love really is very simple, yet at the same time so incredibly complex. Lao Tzu said, “Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.”
Love is something we all want in our lives. It is something that makes us feel whole, complete, needed…loved! Love is passion. It makes people do crazy things. Desperate people try to control it. Perverts try to distort it. Our capitalist society tries to sell it. Poets and artists seek it out for inspiration. However, many times, we forget to look in ourselves to recognize it, and feel its true nature.
So many of us are searching for love, myself included. We are looking for that true happiness, that lasting connection. It is important as we look for love to remember that hurt and pain are part of life, and part of love. To know great love, you have to know what it is to be without that love as well. When you have the awful first date, or the awkward conversation…when you think you have finally grasped it, and it slips through your fingers, remember that it is not love’s fault. Love is about connecting. If you don’t have a connection, you don’t have love. So, keep searching for that match! If you love, you will find the connection, and continue to connect. Love is the affirmation.
Tao Te Ching, 36
If you hope to expand,
You should first contract.
If you hope to become strong,
You should first weaken yourself.
If your ambition is to be exalted,
Humiliation will follow.
If you hold fast to something,
It will surely be taken away from you.
This is the operation of the subtle law of the universe.
Let’s take a lesson from the Tao.
If you hope to expand, you must first contract.
So, if you hope to love, truly love, you must first take the energy of love inward. You must truly love yourself. As cheesy and after school special as that sounds, it’s very true. How do you know what you will expect in a partner or lover if you don’t know what you have and don’t have? To understand love is to first understand yourself.
If you hold fast to something, it will surely be taken away from you. This means that you have to let love flow in its own time. It’s that whole theory about squeezing a bird and making his eyes pop out…it is possible to love too much…that’s when we get into obsession, and no one likes a stalker. You can search for love. You can hold it in your arms, in your mind, in your dreams, in your heart…but remember that love needs room to breathe. And it is important to still remain an individual, even with the perfect story-book romance in your life.
Love is a funny thing. Sometimes we seek out a specific individual with specific qualities. Many times when we find those qualities in someone, we are sadly disappointed. Sometimes we cannot know what it is we need in a significant other until those qualities present themselves to us. Maybe not the package that you thought you would order, but sometimes the universe has different ideas. And it’s when you release the expectation and await the results…trusting that all will be right in the end, you might find that perfect match in someone totally surprising. And maybe, just maybe, be able to hold that person close to your heart.
Namaste,
~J
