What is Love? This is open to interpretation…and many would produce different responses to this question. These three words can be somewhat difficult to answer. What is Love? I won’t answer what love is, but I will make the case for what makes it grow here.
I’ve always debated in my head the nature vs nurture argument. How much do we base our decisions off of our environmental surroundings? If we could put that into a percentage..what number would it be vs our genetic makeup?
I think it’s safe to say that “peer pressure” and “societal pressure” is astronomically powerful to us all…and it influences the masses. Just in the past ten years we have produced social media on top of movies and music. On top of this, we have friends who tell us how things should be. For most, their dopamine hits are felt daily from constant scrolls and taps. We see daily memes and other couples happy. All of this pressure screams to the masses on what love is. Love is supposed to be toxic. Cool. Trendy. Exciting. Love needs to be passionate and romantic. Love shouldn’t be THAT hard. Love should be cute. Love should be fun (most of the time at least).
We have young adults committing to marriage, the single biggest paper they’ll ever sign without a sprinkle of comprehension of love. If we, as a society, could fully comprehend what love is then the success rate of so many commitments would radically increase. It’s the failed expectations that so many have that causes the breakups and divorces. The reality of love is that it’s full of suffering and pain. Hear me out. It requires paying someone else’s bill sometimes. It requires genuine moments of boredom. It requires financial difficulties. It requires doing things you desire simply because your lover doesn’t like it. It requires frustration from how your partner doesn’t clean the way you wanted. It requires independent personal growth that is uncomfortable. It requires doing away with the old version of yourself, letting go of the single version of yourself for a committed version…which isn’t easy. It requires taking care of each other when sickness and physical chaos comes into the home.
If someone could come in and remove suffering from all those committed, they would not make it to the end. They’d all fail. Can we not all agree that two people who try and work together grow together? That if two people meet, stick with it, they can be on such a profoundly deeper level of love when they’re old and wrinkly? How do two elderly people continue to hold hands after decades and decades? How can love grow? Does it just happen because the two individuals exist in the same house? Or is it because they had to struggle together and push through year and year…which in return watered the little flower called “love”, allowing it to blossom to something monumental.
I have a theory in regard to suffering and human experience. I do feel that many young couples who commit know that there will be suffering and hardships in their commitment. They know that it won’t be easy sometimes… yet as time moves on and the hardships come…they still break up. ” I just dont feel it anymore”. “I don’t love you like I used to”. Why is this? Why do people breakup or divorce when they did in fact expect suffering and hardships to come? The Answer is clear to me: Because it is one thing to expect something…and another to actually experience it.
Imagine if you met someone who had studied his entire life about the game of basketball and shooting a ball into a net. let’s say this individual was extremely smart and had decades of studying under his belt about how to play basketball. This individual knew everything from countless books and commentaries. Now imagine with me that you pass a basketball to this man for the first time. What would happen? Should he not be able to play like Michael Jordan? Should he not be able to dribble and shoot with absolute confidence and skill? Drop in three pointers like Steph Curry?
The obvious answer is NO. He would be horrible…confused and lost on how to shoot or bounce the ball. Why is this? Why should an intellectual giant, with countless years of experience under his belt struggle? The easy answer: he has to experience the game. He has to play it…he can read about it, study it and listen to podcasts about it all day but unless he goes out and shoots a ball…he will not be good at it. I call this the “human experience”. This existence requires experience to grow. Hold this thought and swap back to suffering for me. We cannot grow with someone without actually experiencing suffering. We can read romantic novels, watch romantic movies or listen to love songs daily…. but this does nothing to the experience of suffering that inevitably will come to all couples. Suffering is not just horrific injuries or sicknesses that could come…but stress, anxiety, disappointment and boredom too. All feelings that aren’t excitement and joy is a form of suffering.
The issue I see in 2023, when it comes to dating and long-term commitment is people’s lacking comprehension of what’s to come. They base their feelings and minds off of society and social media…which is not the same of the actual experience of it when it occurs in their future relationships. For example, if someone is bored a lot when they are alone, they will continue to be bored a lot when their new partner is around. After the butterflies (aka dopamine) wears off and companionship stage sets in… the boredom will also set back in. Their expectations are not met, they experience what they felt shouldn’t have happened and they leave.
Individuals need to understand that love is nothing without suffering. Love cannot grow without frustration, patience and perseverance. When you’re with your spouse or significant other and you’re bored….when you could be off partying…this is some of the ingredients that is forming the love you deeply crave. It’s not easy, is it? It’s hard to experience the “what-ifs” or letting go of certain things isn’t it? not fun? This is necessary and needs to be expected. Love is not going to be what it is the first few months. That is artificial and will not last. One must obsess over this idea as they meet new people…it will not last. The dopamine will eventually cease and who you were before will be revealed once again.
They say that when two people are together during a traumatic event, they forever remember each other and have an eternal bond that never leaves. The horrific event, whatever it is…ended up causing a powerful connection to form between those two individuals. The same can be said about couples who made it until the end…they needed to be there for each other through all the bouts of boredom, fears, anxieties, financial pains, sicknesses, “what if I was single” “I could be in Vegas right now with my friends drinking” “what if someone is a better match for me” thoughts that pass through their minds…all of it is what makes love grow to what it needs to be. One must leave behind their old life for a new one….one that if done correctly…can be the most beautiful thing they ever experience.
-Jarom
NO ATTACHMENT IS FREEDOM 