“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
–Robert Heinlein
Love is the most precious thing in this world. It is the golden chain that binds hearts together. The bond of love is so strong that our happiness is intertwined with the happiness of others in such a way that we cannot be happy unless they also are happy. We care deeply for those we love, and their happiness is just as important to us as our own.
Real love is given freely and unconditionally. If there are any conditions tied to love, it is not love at all. Love cannot be tied to behavior. A parent who truly loves a child will love that child just as much on a day when the child misbehaves as on those days when the child resembles a little angel. Certainly, a parent cannot ignore misbehavior and may need to take actions to deal with it, but the one thing that a loving parent can never do is to withdraw love from a child for any reason. If parents truly love their children, they will love them even when they are deeply disappointed in them.
It is easy to say, “I love you,” but saying it does not make it so. Far too often false love is a tool of manipulation. It is human nature to want to be loved, and some people will do almost anything to get approval from someone they care about, but approval based on behavior is not love. It is just a reward for behaving the way the controller wants you to behave. Sadly, some people spend years in relationships where the only way to get along with the other person is to constantly appease him or her. As long as their behavior meets the expectations of their controller, things go reasonably well, but even a minor violation of the controller’s wishes can trigger an outburst of anger and disapproval.
Relationships should involve mutual love and respect, but, unfortunately, many relationships are like one-way streets. One party in the relationship has to do all the giving with no reciprocation from the other. The only way to maintain some semblance of harmony in the relationship is for the pleaser to always give in to the one who always has to be pleased. This is no way to live, and it certainly is not living in a mutually loving relationship. But some people are so narcissistic that they seem almost incapable of giving love to anyone but themselves. Their whole focus is on their own self-importance. They seem to believe that they deserve whatever they want in life, and they feel no need or desire to concern themselves with the happiness of anyone else.
True love involves a deep and tender feeling of affection for, or attachment or devotion to, another person. Money cannot buy love, nor can power command it. In order to be loved, we have to be loving and lovable, but we don’t have to be rich, famous or beautiful. If we love another person, we love them without any conditions. We give our love to others freely, and those who love us also give love without condition. And the more love we give to others, the more we have for ourselves.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2025
Allen W. Smith
