WHOSE IDEA OF LOVE ARE WE CHASING?

Take a moment. Take a deep breath and sit alone for a few minutes. Somewhere quiet; where you can gather your thoughts. Grab a paper and a pen/pencil and write at least 10 things that describe what love means to you, that describe what your idea of love is. It is not about love in the romantic sense but rather the all encompassing emotion. Jot down the feelings and actions that you normally associate with love. You can write as many as you want. Go ahead. Do it. And once you are done, come back and continue reading.

Love is such a beautiful emotion. Love is a virtue. Some even go as far as to say that love makes the world go round. Growing up I had surrounded myself with love, romance and relationships. As a teenager, I loved reading romantic novels and stories as much as I loved a good thriller; of course nothing could beat a romantic thriller. I absolutely adored rom-coms and always bawled like a baby while watching those. I listened to love songs on repeat and I fell hard for the numerous sappy, dramatic series which would start out as exciting plots but eventually become about forever love. Then there was Instagram, with its barrage of posts about ideal relations, ideal partners, ideal friends and ideal families.

These posts consistently told me what any person who loves me should do and what I should do if I love someone. Everywhere I looked I found bullet points on what a good relationship should have and should not have. Quotes about soul mates and perfect partners were omnipresent. Some positive and some negative. And I am guilty as charged in that I saved them and took screenshots.

But recently I have been trying to get to know myself better and in doing that I came across a revelation. That my idea of love, the love that I kept pining for and the expectations I kept from people in my life were all a result of a lifelong conditioning. So far the conditioning had been subtle but now with the gargantuan impact of social media in our life, it is more on-the-face. All those movies and books and now these posts forced upon me this large-than-life, impractical, fantastical and absolutely unreal picture of what love looks like. The worst part is that in chasing this idea of love I started measuring the love people had for me. I started having unrealistic expectations from them and wanted them to behave a particular way. I wanted them to tick the boxes on the checklist and if they didn’t I would become hurt and upset and start questioning if they really loved me.

But once I realized what was happening, I looked inside. I asked myself what were the things that really mattered to me. After a lot of introspection and internal dialogue, I found MY idea of love and what it means to me and it really helped me become much more at peace because I was no longer trying to finish some list. I realized that love cannot be measured and it definitely cannot be compared. Different people have different places in our lives and different roles to play and so do we. In each role and relationship there will be tough days, when it is hard to love but that sense of commitment and those daily little compromises and adjustments are what love actually is.

I also realized that my idea of love is about how I express love. It is not necessary that the other person has the same concept. So once you find your idea of love, make sure you don’t try to impose it on the other person by expecting them to do the same things and express emotions the same way that you do. If you ever start doing that, just imagine how you would feel if the situation had been vice versa and someone asked you to express yourself in their love language. In fact if the other person has a different idea of love it is a lovely thing. It is an opportunity to learn so much and grow together and make it a wonderful journey in itself. 

So now go back to your list and find out how much of that is actually you and then hold on to it. Love fearlessly and without hesitation and remember, life is short and love makes the journey worthwhile!