3 of 3 Series: 14 Lessons on Love, Loving, and Relationship

Here is the last post in the series that I started HERE.

-----

11. That love isn’t exclusive. Romantic love needs other kinds of love for it to grow. > I have always believed in keeping a separate, additional circle of people outside of our relationship circle. We need friends, family, and other individuals in our life. As for me, who has only a few people in my life and who strongly value my own time and space, I always try to spend time alone - to recharge and regenerate, and to do all the things that I can only really do when I am on my own. Given our nature to crave attachment, it can become a challenge and it may require discipline. I have found out, though, that the long-term benefits and satisfactions are worth it. Our time with others and with ourselves will give our relationships additional nourishment.

12. That we can let go and still love. That love sometimes means letting go. > If not love for the other person, at least love for ourselves. There are things that are bigger than relationships, and these things can also entail love - maybe a different kind of love, but love still. In my life, there are people that I have let go because I loved them enough to give them the chance to be independent and to enjoy the joys of maturity. There are people that I have let go because I loved myself enough to save me from the negative influences of the said people. And there are people that I have let go because I loved them enough to know that distance will be better over togetherness.

13. That true love is imperfect, but it can accept imperfections. > True love knows that none of us is imperfect. That one day soon, one of you will hurt the other (intentionally or not), that one of you will put his own interest over the interest of his partner (selfishness is innate, after all, and only discipline and strong will can combat it), that one of you will betray the other... At a certain point, both of you will have done a number of wrongs against each other. But true love will overlook the fault, or recognize it but forgive it. Because true love knows no matter how hard we try to be good, we fail. But, we continue trying.

14. That true love is still bound by reason, by the rules of right and wrong. And true love cannot bloom when it is wrong. > Now I strongly believe in this. In my situation right now, I'd say right and wrong aren't clear cut by definition. There are certain things that we believe to be right, regardless of their morality or immorality, and regardless of the beliefs of the people around us. There are issues of right and wrong that only our heart can discern. If something is wrong but which our heart believes to be right, who shall tell us off? In the end, it is us who deals with our conscience. I'd say the most important thing here is that we do not betray ourselves and our values.

-----

February is almost at an end, but true love is forever. True love is forever. :)

2 of 3 Series: 14 Lessons on Love, Loving, and Relationship

So here's the continuation to my post the other day - some lessons about love that I have written in 2011, and how my views about them have changed (or remained). The first part of this post is HERE.

-----

5. That we need to love ourselves before we can truly love others. > Some people say that true love is love that exceeds one's love for himself, but I do not believe that. Because true love can only come from a fulfilled person, and we can never be fulfilled if we lack self love. Others' love cannot sustain us if we don't have love for ourselves. And the absence of self love makes us incapable of loving others. Because loving others without loving ourselves... That is often motivated by our unconscious need to gain love. In this case, we give only because we hope to gain - to gain something that we cannot give to ourselves.

6. That true love isn’t all about the here and the now. It is made up of the past, the present, and the future all in one. > Loving here and now, regardless of the past and the future - this is one of the biggest misconceptions about love, and it is one misconception that has caused many people suffering. Loving requires acceptance (and not ignorance and neglect) of the past, as well as a look at the future. You love your partner, but he has always been an alcoholic in the past. You love your partner, but he cannot see himself settling at least in the next five years (whereas you plan to get married and see yourself settled in three years). These are practical things that can easily get lost amid feelings of passionate love. But then again, love isn't about the here and the now alone. Sooner or later, these realities will come haunting.

7. That friendship can sustain whenever love occasionally wanes. > I cannot stress enough the importance of being friends with our lover. Because sometimes, friendship becomes the only common ground left between two persons in a relationship whenever things become a little shaky. In the end, if everything doesn't work, friendship can be the only thing that remains. And yes, lucky are those people who are friends first before being lovers (lucky me in my present relationship), but that doesn't mean that those who become lovers first cannot be friends anymore. In fact, as a romantic relationship grows, friendship can grow along with it.

8. That without God, a relationship is doomed. > And it's difficult when one of you believes in Him, and the other doesn't. Heck, the fact is that there's difficulty even if both of you believe - if you don't have the same level of commitment in your faith. If you are the one with the stronger faith, you will most probably feel an obligation to carry the other (and that can be tiring, I tell you). Or, your partner might soon pull you away and cause you to slack off. Soon, guilt will probably eat at you. And if you don't handle that feeling well, you might end up resenting your partner for not supporting you, at the very least. As for me, I hope I don't end up that way. I'm still working on it, and God help me.

9. That love isn’t all about pleasure. It involves joy and pain and a whole mix of good and bad emotions that blend into each other to create the real experience of true love. > Most of us have an ideal picture of love, and I think there's nothing wrong with that ideal picture. After all, if we don't hope for the best when it comes to love, it won't be possible to hope for the best when it comes to anything else. This ideal picture may soon cause disappointment when we find out loving is not all rainbows and sunshine. But, all these can actually strengthen love in the end. In some instances, after all the experiences - both good and bad - most of us will look back and agree that it was better that we have loved, and lost (if that is the case), than not to have loved at all. The heartaches are often worth it.

10. That it’s passion which keeps a relationship interesting, but it’s love which keeps it lasting. > While passion can mean getting happy-crazy about the other person, or being head over heels in love, true love is not always about that. True love transcends all that. After all the buzz and the craziness, true love prevails. It can remain quiet, still, calm, but in those simple things it can be content. And when passion subsides, true love can carry us through.

-----

Lessons 11 to 14 will be posted next time. Happy reading! :)

1 of 3 Series: 14 Lessons on Love, Loving, and Relationship

I came across an old post while cleaning up and emptying my old blog - my Valentine post last February 2011. When I wrote that post, I was in a relationship. And now, a lot has already changed. 

I've broken up with my then boyfriend (after five years and five months of being together), enjoyed being single for almost a year, got involved with one of my girl friends, and now she's my girlfriend (we're turning one year this coming April).

Some of the experiences I've had since writing the said article have validated the lessons I included in the post while other experiences proved some of the lessons wrong. In this series of 3 posts, I will be posting the 14 lessons I enumerated and how my views about them have changed (or remained).

So, here it goes.

-----

Heart’s day is just around the corner, and there are already a lot of Valentine decorations around. So, I guess there’s no better post than something about – err, love – today. I’m not the type who goes all mushy over this topic. And for this occasion, let me simply post some random lessons that I have learned about love over the years. Here goes…

1. That love is love, only when it is allowed to grow naturally in the heart – no planning about it, no forcing it either. > I still agree. Love sometimes enters our life when we're most unprepared - no plans, no whatever agenda. And even as it starts to take control of our life, it's important that we do not rush things - that we think things over and over, that we take the time to see whether that love is bound to grow over time or whether it's bound to perish after a while. When the time is right, love will fully bloom.

2. That love needs to be nourished, cared for, looked after like a young plant in a garden. At. All. Times. Even the strongest of love needs tending. Otherwise, it dies a slow death. > Yes! No matter how strong love is, no matter how passionate, no matter how real, time (and the occasional storms) can tire it or wound it. And without utmost care, it may slowly wither (and we might not even notice until it's down to its last breath!). So I would say, loving needs conscious effort. Yes, it's easy to drown in the feeling when we're at the height of this emotion, but half the time, we need to make a conscious effort to make things work and drive things forward. With true love, this should be easy.

3. That love isn’t all about romance. It’s also about dreaming together, moving forward together, growing together, enriching each other in faith and in values – together. Without all these, love withers. > Now this one's difficult. Half the time, we find someone we love so much - only that person doesn't share all of our values. And that's okay. After all, we're all created to be distinct individuals. But, amidst all the differences, it takes real effort to find a common ground, some sort of balance, to keep things smooth and even. Because converting one person in the relationship into the beliefs and values of the other person doesn't work (especially if the reason for the conversion is wrong). So yes, we may have differences. But then again, it's important to make a conscious effort to thrive in a healthy, balanced relationship.

4. That true love isn’t blind. True love understands. True love knows. True love comes with awareness. > True. Even when we choose to get involved in a wrong relationship, we are aware. We know the consequences. We know the challenges. And we know we could end up in a mess. But, what we do is dig out the good possibilities from an ocean of bad possibilities. And even if we believe we've been blinded by love, the truth is that we only decided to close our eyes and plunge... Because there are risks worth taking when it comes to love.

---

I'll be posting the second part next time - Lesson 5 to 10.