Love is restraint

It doesn't bother some people to joke head-on with potentially offensive remarks, because they themselves can take these remarks as jokes.

But some other people are more easily offended, and can find this aggressive humor hurtful.

So, who's to blame if tensions arise ? Should the first kind of people restrain their humor depending on who they are talking to ? Or should the other kind of people evolve a little bit, and stop being so easily offended ? Because, to be frank, easily offended people are a bother.

Imagine for a moment that the violence of words was similar to physical violence. Some people are physically violent, and like to hit you for fun. Imagine they're much tougher than you, and every time they hit you it really hurts. Is it theirs to stop hitting you ? Is it yours to become less sensitive to pain ?

Think twice before displaying potential violence towards people around you. It's not necessarily theirs to learn to take the blow.

To love is to give up one's privileges

It's the story of a man who falls in a hole. He cries out for help.

A doctor comes by, and sees him. The man asks him for help, so the doctor writes him a prescription, throws it to him, and leaves.

Then a priest passes by, and sees the poor man. The latter asks him for help. The priest blesses him and goes away.

Eventually, a friend of this man walks by, and sees him. The man at the bottom of the hole asks him for help. So his friends jumps down the hole.

"What is wrong with you ? says the man, now we're both stuck down here !" And his friend tells him "Yes, but I've already been in this hole, and I know how to get out".

Love comes from the inside

First people you love, you love because they love you (or think they do anyway). Your parents, your first boyfriends/girlfriends... you're looking for an image of yourself you can love too, and you think you'll find it in their eyes.

If your parents do a good job, you will. But don't waste your time with boyfriends/girlfriends. Because they're looking for the same thing, so it's doomed to hurt and fail. And if you fall desperately in love with any guy or girl who seems to like you, just wait it out - they're not so great, you'll see. Better see it before you get hurt.

You can't truly, properly love the outside until you love the inside. Because love comes from the inside. You have to accept and love yourself before being able to correctly love someone else. Learn to live with yourself. It's not easy, because you're full of things you're ahsamed of. Well guess what, everyone is. Just learn to love yourself anyway, and keep working towards being a better person.

How do you know if you're fine with who you are ? You don't change your behaviour when you're around someone you've got a crush on.

Yeah. I know.

Love is sacrifice

To love is to sacrifice time, money, efforts towards a thing or person in particular. Video-games, painting, dating, food, sport, sex, drug, studies, TV-shows, reading, work, oneself... we love this thing or person and expect to derive joy and a meaning to our life.

By devoting these ressources, we choose to love, to adore a thing or person. But do we realize that loving these things is to tie ourselves to them, to submit ourselves to them ? Even more important, do we even know if this thing or person is actually worth it ? Does is really, fully bring joy and meaning to our life ?

And you, what do you love ?

Love covers

A man lost his job, started drinking, his wife left him with their only son. He became a drunkard, was a terrible dad if any at all, and ended his life alone and miserable.

The son, however, grew up to be all the contrary : kind, loving and responsible, passionate about life.

When he was asked how he had turned out so well given all the personnal things he went through, he said : up until I was 18, every night, my dad came to my room when I went to bed, and told me he loved me.

Love covers all the screw-ups.

To love is to belong

"I love you therefore I want you to be mine".

This is how a lot of people think and feel. But what is ours is whatever we have control over. My car. My house. My TV. We have bought it, it has been given to us, in any case we have acquired exclusive rights over it. We can choose how to use it, when, and it is submitted to us, we are its master. But we cannot possess another human being, because they will always have free will.

All we can choose to do is use this free will to choose to belong to someone.

"I love you therefore I am yours".

To love is to suffer

Not that suffering is indispensable to love, but in this world, it is inevitable. And beyond being the only possible proof of love, it involves the very essence of what it means to love.

Suffering, not for the suffering itself, nor even to justify one's love, but simply because the other one suffers. We all suffer, and we all look for someone who would agree to share our sufferings. We all look for someone who would agree to love us.

Love does not prevent suffering, but it relieves the sufferings, it heals the wounds and diminishes the pain. The magnitude of love is measured by the magnitude of the suffering it shares.

Some philosophies preach detachment, in order to avoid the suffering. That would be avoiding love. That would be avoiding life.

Love is what we need

We humans are, for all our life, in desperate need of happiness, but we can't seem to find anything pure enough, or which lasts long enough, to be truly happy. Sure, we get satisfaction now and then, but it always fades.

We long for something which would bring us happiness, so something good. But also that something good should be fulfilling enough, so that we could get enough. But can we get enough ? No. So it would have to be both infinite and eternal.

And what do we hear is the only thing our life revolves around ? Love. So maybe that's it. Maybe Love is that good, infinite and eternal thing we seek. But how do we get it ? Every one wants it, but no one knows where to find it !

Well, what about we give it, to begin with ? Infinitely, eternally, and well ? Maybe then there will be enough around for us to get some. Who knows ?

Love according to... The Bible

1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."