Is Love the Same for Everyone?

Love is full of little paradoxes. Scroll through any social media space where we exchange our id’s, ideas, and identities, and you’ll come across some:

• It’ll come looking for you; chase it, and it’ll disappear.
• It happens when you least expect it; wait for it, and it’ll shrivel you.
• You can’t love others, unless you love yourself; yet, you can’t love yourself, unless you’ve been shown love by others.
• Love is not a problem to be solved. If it haunts you, let it go. Yet, it is not a solution, either. If you’re using it to solve what haunts you, let it go.

Aside from all of these, though, I think the greatest paradox about love is—love itself.

The fact that it exists, and sustains, and the fact that we choose it.

We choose to love, every day.

We choose to love, every time, no matter how it ends, no matter how many times we promise ourselves, “not again, never again.”

We become familiar with the concept of love at an early age. Either through our parents, or siblings, or friends, or stuffed animals, or books, or boredom, or colors.

If you’re anything like me, you remember these early emotions as “easy” ones. As “simple” ones.

You remember a time when the sky was just a sky and not a canvas for what no longer belongs to you.

You remember a time when flowers were just flowers and not reminders of the petal softness of an old lover’s touch or the vulnerable disappointment of the end.

You remember a time when the storm on the news was just a storm on the news, and not reminiscent of the organ beating in your chest.

Somewhere along the line, somewhere in the linear timeline of blink and blood, “things got complicated.”

We complicated things. Now, love became what it was—hard work, commitment, compromise, choice, chore, change. It became synonymous with ending. We began to carry the hearts we broke and those who broke our hearts like stones, tied to our feet.

And if you’re lucky enough, like me, to have been born in the early ‘90’s, you saw love brave its way through whispered giggles on landlines, to mixed CDs played on Walkmans, to giddy chatroom hide-and-seeks, all the way to the Tinder age, where love no longer knows how to withstand the centuries-old weight, the senile angel.

Despite every statistic to the contrary, however, despite our evolutionary design, despite our innate selfishness, despite our drive for survival, despite our instinct to compete, and out-do, and out-run, and out-live, we choose love.

We choose to sustain love.

We choose to welcome it, like a lost voyager, into our spaces. We take its weather-beaten cargo, we soothe its wrinkles, we allow it to sit at our tables, and eat, and drink, and nestle into our collarbones, until the stranger sitting across from us is no longer a stranger.

At least we hope. It’s a risk. But despite it all, we take the risk. We allow ourselves to be vulnerable.

And every time, despite it all, no matter what, we hand our heart to our stranger, along with our brain, our bones, our body, and trust that they don’t hand them back.

Love is among the most innate, yet most widely misunderstood realities.

I would say that the biggest paradox is thinking that love is reciprocal: “I’ll love you if you love me.” That’s not how it works.

Love is unilateral. Love is a choice to radiate from one’s center. If you radiate at all, you include yourself. If you radiate at all, you shine on everyone around you.

If you exclude yourself or anyone, then you don’t radiate, and you don’t love anyone. There are no conditions (that’s approval). There is nothing that the other has to do to “earn” it. Love doesn’t have a “why?”.

It doesn’t matter whether they love you in return. Expecting them to love you in return is really a matter of expecting them to take care of you, which is self-interest, not love.

You can’t feel their love anyway. The love you feel is the love you radiate.

Love has nothing to do with intimacy, nothing to do with being taken care of, and nothing to do with approval. It’s simply a choice to be who you really are and thereby help heal the world.

Love suffers. True Love suffers. It may cause pain & hurts. It puts the beloved first above self. “There is no task in what we love. “ It is unconditional. “Emotional” love comes & goes. Waged by emotions & passions at the time. Love does not waver. Many mistake lust for love. The difference is, lust ALWAYS takes & expects a return of some kind , while true love always GIVES, faithfully & unconditionally.

Lust & emotional love give temporary “Happiness” only. True Love gives lasting “Joy”. When emotional love turns cold or leaves there is unhappiness,sadness & distress. When there is separation from true love there is a peace which comforts the soul.

True love has risk. Ones heart is entirely open to the beloved. Vulnerable to the be!oved. And yet, love is not expected in return from the beloved. Again, it is unconditional, no strings attached. True Love loves always despite circumstances. Emotional love will NOT LAST!

I think the greatest paradox about love is the more we give the more we feel. The more we feel the more we risk hurt. Love is meant for us to see it as being this free flowing vibe of energy. But sure sometimes we just don’t know how to stop the flow of love we have for someone and It Can become toxic .. not saying it always is this way.

To love and be loved have two different meanings that can cause a whirlwind of emotions. Loving someone can cause anxiety especially since you are putting yourself out there. You’re allowing for yourself to be vulnerable. To love means you’re putting yourself at risk for heartache… depression, anxiety, low self esteem etc everything that comes with failed relationships, crushes gone bad, etc. Oh yes, when we fall hard for someone and those feelings and emotions are not reciprocated. We sure can feel Inadequate afterwards. Questioning everything that led up to this point, conversations, disagreements, disputes and even agreements that took place. Yet in our minds we thought it was love.. we risked, we pursued and the situation failed. All hope and all dreams shattered. Now to begin to learn how to pick up the pieces and try to start over again. Months and or perhaps even years down the road.

But to be loved gives one that sense of security. That warm cosy feeling. It gives your life vitality. All senses are awakened. You know that someone is waiting for you when you get home. You have someone who calls you during their day. You know you’re not alone at night. You know when you go to sleep you share your bed with your loved one. You have a house you made into a home. Yes I know … that this isn’t always the case but for the sake of this answer, just agree. I’m your home , you are loved, you’re not alone.

Big difference in ‘to love’ than ‘to be loved’ .

People having a concept about true love and fake love. There’s nothing true n fake about love coz love is simply love. It has nothing positive n negative. Love is always unconditional ( it has no conditions, whatever the situation be you love the person). love has no expectation, it is eternal.

What we’ve forever assumed as love is lust or attraction or we may call it whatever we want to.

99.9 % people have no clue what love is. The easiest way to be with God or existence is to be in love ( where the ME dies ) .

Yup it’s intricate I know, but that’s what it is…