Different Faces of Love

Love is a vague term. It may mean happiness to some and misery to others. There is however an underlying fact when you talk about Love, and that is, it is inherently good. It is never wrong to love someone. What can distort its meaning is the degree of love and how the act is delivered.

It is hard to distinguish proper kind of love from the "excessive" and "insufficient" ones. Most of the time, relationships end up tragically when the latter kinds are practiced. An example of a situation is when partners argue about space. Space is essential to every being. It leaves a little room for his/her self. Too much space can lead to a "void" or emptiness. When this happens, a wide gap is created because one of them may fall out of love. On the other hand, too little space can lead to "suffocation". There are certain things that has to be done alone. Usually, someone gets so fed up and this leads to the break-up. A demarcation line has to be set in order to know the right way to love someone.

There is no definite way to express love. All I know is that you cannot love someone completely without being selfless. In the process, you learn to give without asking for anything in return. You can even get irrational at times. This happen when your emotions overpower your ability to think. The thing is, when you love, it is not the mind that is working, it is the heart. Each one of us has an ideal man or woman and most would go for the perfect ones. In reality, there is no such thing as a perfect. Everyone has his/her own defect. There can be, however, a perfect match. That person may or may not be the one you've been dreaming to have, but one thing is for sure, genuine happiness is awaits you when you find your destiny. You can't really choose who to love. It may come in the most peculiar way, or who knows, you may just fall in love with the person you never even thought you would like to spend the rest of your life with.

When you talk about love, you can't set aside the issue about pain. It is inevitable. There is always an aberration in the system. But it is essential. Without pain, the meaning of true love would remain ambiguous. What I've mentioned may sound paradoxical. If someone you love inflicted pain on you and you didn't even get hurt, can you say that you love him/her to a great extent? When you confess your feelings to your crush but the only response you get is "I'm sorry. We're not meant to be together," isn't it just normal that you feel bad about it? Pain is there to make you stronger, not to make you feel bitter. It is a compass that guides you to the right person. It will only seem unending when you start become impatient. There is always a right time, a right situation and a right place to meet the person you shall be with forever.

 In love, you must also take risks. There is no assurance whether or not the person you love has the same feelings for you, but how will you know the real score if you won't even try? Isn't it more painful to know that he/she likes you but it was too late when you confided your thoughts so he/she found someone else? You will only end up in regret. When you confess your love, you will get the chance to know if you even stood a chance rather than being bewildered on what that person thinks or feels about you. If the unfortunate thing happens, that only means that there is someone else in there waiting for you. It's not the end of the road, you've just got to take a detour.

What causes a person to hold back their feelings? Probably, the most sound reason would be "fear." To narrow it down, it would be the fear of rejection and fear of commitment. It is a parasite that hampers progress. It can make the brave cowards. When people let it take over them, they tend to dig deep and enshroud their feelings in their hearts. This eventually turns into a burden. It's a self-inflicted pain and people who do this become deprived of the happiness one can get from expressing his/her real sentiments. Fear is always there but you can always choose to overcome it with courage. Yes, you can be rejected and yes, commitment was never easy, but when you love, these will become oblivious.

All mentioned above is just a product of my own discernment. It doesn't mean that his is how everyone understands love. However, the fact still remains that all human beings are not devoid of love. It will always be a part of this world.

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Additional Notes:

(This is not really a part of my work. I just thought of sharing a little bit how this goes for me. Teehee.)

All that I've written above would probably be the things I've said to my friends who sought for my advice. Ironically, these are the very things I find really hard to do. I'm not really expressive of my emotions. More often than not, I tend to hold back what I feel and just let it pass. I even become so repulsive that I push people away.  I've always had this fear of being rejected and commitment was never in my dictionary. Maybe I'm afraid because I know that I'm not resilient to pain. However, with my little story right now, it's more painful than I thought and I'm actually full of regret. I wrote this for myself but I would really appreciate it if the people who read this can relate to my work.