Friday
on Lovei was task to read the book - ' road less travelled' - and write a 2-page reflection paper, which is due after chinese new year. the chapter that i was suppose to read on love was 100 pages long. the long torture for a short assignment.
on love (part 1)love is the willingness to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth. It must be a conscious effort and an act of will to choose to love. The end of true love is spiritual growth. Helping the other party grow will help in your own growth. This is a very different defination from the dictionary and values of the world.
Falling in love.. ??As a baby, we are unable to distinguish from the world and I. when the baby is hungry, the child thinks that the world is hungry. You can see that kids tend to give orders to the parents around -
i'm hungry = i cry super loud to get u to feed me. As the kid grows, he recognise his will is his own and not the universe. As a adolescence, he realise that there are boundaries of flesh and limits. Loneliness sometimes sets in.
In the act of falling in love is not an act of will but attraction. Falling in love is an escape from walls of individual identities and merge with others. This merging forms a 'small world' whereby a frown from your other half's face, you wonder what he is thinking. In this case, we become the king / queen of the universe again.
However, this enjoyment is temporary as the individual will reasset itself and they will fall out of love. The myth romantic love of a handsome prince and princess will end - soon, they will breakup. The ending of attraction is the start of REAL love (when the feeling of love is lacking). REAL LOVE is a willingness. however, most people do not see that ... Breaking up when there is no feelings comes the death of real love.
Just to clearify - Falling in love is not all that bad, it is a start of Real LOVE. I am still a sucker for romantic movies.
Love is not ..... DependencyLove is a free exercise of choice and not a necessity. Often, we want to be babied and cared for. We want to be loved but there is no time to love and concern the other person. The other party feels trapped.
Then the opposite is also true. Some people impose our feelings on others to tighten the emotional ties. Some people can only get along with their pets cuz owners are able to impose their on the pets. Owners love the pet as long as the pet's will are the same as these. Sometimes, parents love their kids if they listen to their words. Often, parents do not understand their children. As a result of the failure to listen, children will not understand their worth and lack confidence.
What is love? Real love is the self enlarged and ego boundaries extended. we extend ourselves and identified with the world is blurred. Firstly, love is intention (willingness). We choose to do something because of it satisfies people and help them grow. it's a comittment. Love is a form of work or a form of courage. We set aside our existing preoccupations to attend to the other's person growth. An exmaple is listening. There must be a willingness to listen. This is a 2 way thing - receiver also gives & giver also receives.
Example: Parents listen to their 6 yr old kid. Kids, at that age, often talk a lot of strange talk. They hardly make sense. The conversation jumps from one topic to the other.
Listening to the child -> gives the child esteem
knowing that the parent is taking time to listen, they know that they are valued and say things of value and raise expectation.
By listening -> parents learn more about their child
The more you know about your child, the more you can teach your childen. More kids know, the kid has more value and they become extraordinary people.
Value creates value
Love begets love.
Couples share ups and down. If one party share ups and down, is it -
1. not giving the other party space
2. or the other party unloving? unwilling to step out of the comfort zone to grow
We will discuss more later in another blog. =)
princess maddie.
