So, today I've been working on an assignment given to me by my bishop a little while back. The assignment is to write an essay on what love is. Since the assignment came from my bishop, you might think that he meant love in a Christian charity or God's love sense of the word. But you'd be wrong. He means romantic love. Basically, he wants to know what I think love is (probably trying to understand why I'm not finding it). This is one of the many forms that his efforts to get me married have taken.That aside, I thought it was an interesting assignment and so I've decided to take it on and see what I can learn. I've spent a lot of time thinking and have also asked a lot of people their thoughts on the subject. And what I've learned is that love is a very specialized, individual experience. We all come to this world with our own grouping of needs, desires, passions and temperaments. Since love is something that creeps into and touches every nook and cranny of our lives, it necessarily takes on different forms and performs different functions for each of us, morphing and molding itself to meet our individual needs.
In the end I've come to realize that asking to know the nature of love is pointless ("How can you catch a cloud and pin it down?"). Really, the more important question that probably each of us would benefit from asking is: what is love for me?
So, what's love for you?
2 comments:
Hey, you've heard my ramblings on the subject, but ever since I read your post I keep thinking about love. And I think I would like to sum it up in one small idea.
Love is caring about someone else's needs and happiness above your own. That does not mean sacrificing one's self, it just means learning to be "self"-less. And that seems to be where true love lives.
Just a thought...
Hmmm. . . I think this is interesting because in our family "discussion" I was surprised at how similar all of our answers were about how we knew our spouses were "the one", but I agree with you in that I think it is true that what someone gives and receives in love is specialized to who they are. For example God's love is perfect and the same for everybody, but different people experience it in different ways, just like the feelings of the spirit.
I'm going to have to go with Marta's thoughts as well, before I got married I thought a lot about what I wanted out of my marriage and what I would get of love, but now that I'm married I've learned that the only way to make it work and be happy is to spend my time thinking about what Lincoln wants and needs out of our relationship. And when I focus on that I'm happier then I ever was worrying about "what's in it for me".
However I will say this, you are awesome and I love you bunches, just no the same way that I love Lincoln.
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