LOVE - a decision or a feeling?

LOVE, is a cumulation of a lot of little things, love can be the concern, the devotion towards somebody. Love can be honesty or respect or the affection the little butterflies in your gut. Love can be the attraction the intense passion, the crazy rush of oxytocin and endorphins. Love can be the selflessness, the part where you give undoubtedly. This is my version of love. 

I was always in search of love (the wrong kind) I don’t entirely blame myself movies, books, poems have played a pivotal role in displaying romanticism in self-destructive ways citing common phrases like—crazy in love, madly in love, falling in love, better half, my life, all these phrases fall into either of the two categories one where you are mentally unstable and two when you are not a complete whole. 

People lose their sense of self when they find a potential romantic partner, their world revolves around them, like a planet revolves around the sun. We make them the star of our lives, literally and metaphorically. We rely on them for the light and brightness in our lives. We become convinced that god put us on earth to be with that one person. What we fail to understand that there is no star when there is brightness all around. That their importance is relative and not absolute. When you are in the dark phase of your life, they become your guiding light; you blinding follow them, but when you get a clear vision; you realise they weren’t all that you actually ever wanted, let alone needed.

We have so much to see, to learn and experience, to meet beautiful and amazing people around the world. The last thing you should worry about when you are in your teens or early adulthood is if they (your love interest) texted you back or not. To sit in agony looking at your phone for hours waiting for the message to be read. Or the apocalypse descends when they were online and yet did not read your message. You have a mini panic attack. You keep analysing what you wrote and what they interpreted, sending your messages to your friends so they can be highly misinterpret it and add fuel to the fire. All this is honestly juvenile. If you are into some self inflicting pain and misery, then go ahead this is the perfect recipe to piece by piece butcher your sanity. 

 

“Well, I believe we have some power over who we love. It isn't something that just happens to a person.” - Theodore 'Laurie' Laurence 

When people say they don’t have control over who they love, it’s just an excuse for their shitty decision- shows poor judgement skills and a makeshift self defence mechanism to back it up. I do strongly believe that it is a conscious decision to love someone it involves complete awareness and control, when you decide to love someone, you decide every single day when you wake up it is not something you merely fall into it is something that you stand in-  you stand in Love. And ask yourself what is more stable – standing or falling? When love is more of a decision than a feeling it has higher chances of surviving. Feelings have no basis it is as unpredictable as death you have it today but may or may not tomorrow,  because sometimes you don’t feel that you are in love with your partner situations hinder feeling but,  if you tide over to situations and decide to stay in love that is what will truly matter in the grand scheme of things. 

When you decide to love some, you set your own parameters for loving them, love that is independent of your counterparts love. That you will decide to love them despite if they don’t act so lovingly at times. The secret that is mostly unknown to the masses is that giving love feels so much sweeter and satisfying, that the ability to love completely, truly, honestly, truthfully, undisputedly and relentlessly is so much rarer than love which is received. It is hard work not going to lie (personal experience) to give yourself to someone wholly. There is a great sense of vulnerability attached to it, fear of being unloved, of loneliness and abandonment constantly encircling our minds.

Loving someone consciously comes with a lot of scary and frightening thoughts. It’s more like an investment by what you are investing is either going to multiply exponentially or be lost to never be recovered again. That’s essentially the core reason to not blindly be in a state of love, rather weighting all the possible situations and circumstances and assessing the value of your potential investment. You not only love who they are but all that they are yet to be with all the uncertainty that they aren’t aware of, but trusting them and more so trusting yourself for the decision you made.  

To be happy in someone’s happiness to want the best for them even if it doesn’t include you is love in its rarest and most pure form. Wishing or hoping which ever is stronger of their well-being, their health and safety. Even if they don’t reciprocate your feelings and are neither actively present it doesn’t stop you from loving them, because my love is independent of their love, it just started with I decided to love them and ends when I decide to stop loving them and no external factor plays even a minute role in deflecting the course of my love. Their bare existence is enough for me to keep loving them. 

I find the forced nature of love highly fragile and artificial. You can’t make someone love you, no psychological tick of wearing red or mirroring their actions puts a seal on a lifetime of love. Love doesn’t need constant cohesion. It is refreshing and wholesome when it is natural and organic, when it flows like a river by its own course and own way, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, sometimes stagnant. 

 “But love, I've come to understand, is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.” - Nicholas Sparks