Love is a feeling felt in different aspects by different people. It can be friendly love or romantic love. Other people consider real love to be utterly unconditional existing among the members of the family. Utterly love can also exist between people from diverse cultural backgrounds. For some people, love is ever-changing, fluid, and it is everywhere. Other people regard love as spiritual love felt or bestowed to them by the leader of their religion. Philosophers argue that love is the most powerful force among the creatures in the entire universe.
According to Oord (2010), love is defined as an intensely tender, adoring fondness for another person. According to the Oxford Dictionary “Love is any number of feelings and experiences related to a sense of strong affection”. Many people have argued concerning the true meaning of love throughout the ages. Everyone experiences love in different ways. People have put individual interpretation of love in an attempt to define this phenomenon. An individual thought about love might be another individual’s kind of infatuation (Oord, 2010). On the other hand, psychologists argue that love does not necessarily contain positive feelings as usually thought. Devotion, affection, passion, desire, respect, loyalty or warmth are the most common ways to define love. The terms are all forms of love regardless of the term used.
Love is a unique and a special feeling of adoration, desire and respect for a particular person or something that ultimately brings people together as one entity. According to Simmons (2009), love can shape a person’s personality from different aspects such as bringing harmony, happiness and adoration to the world around that person. Love can also bring dependence and misbalance in a person life and the world around them. Enteen (2010), argues that love can bring both strength and weakness to the life of an individual.
The definition states that love makes an individual strong. This is the aspect of psychological strength through which the personality of an individual can be harmonized and act as a source of positive feelings. According to Wagoner (1997), an individual when on their own behaves like a closed system but when love is involved to attach a person to another person, the system opens up and makes the person complete. A person gains psychological stability when they concentrate their desires, respect, and affection to another person. The stimulus is positive in carrying out any an activity. The prolonging of the emotional harmony towards another person creates a psychological maturity and personal responsibilities (Oord, 2010). This implies that, love requires psychological resource mobilization of a person. The love towards an individual or something provides psychological protection from any threats.
Love grows with commitment. People must demonstrate commitment for love to grow. For commitment, one has to show willingness to take care and show love to the other. Also, one has to be ready of the possibility of any disappointment and know how to handle emotional pain that might be as a result of broken love. Simmons (2009), argues that communication is one of the vital requirements in sustaining healthy and positive love. Ensuring effective communication of one’s feelings towards another is very vital. Love involves the sharing of one’s life feelings, downfalls and experiences. Good communication in love creates honesty and compassion. Love involves compassion, listening and understanding the needs of another.
The strength of feeling of love makes it the most powerful force in the entire universe. Based on the definition that love is a weakness, people end up doing dreadful things out of fear, hate or desperation. Love can cause people to hate each other and push them to do much worse. When love comes to an end, a person cannot imagine moving on without the ability to get in touch with the one they have lost love with. As a result, the person begins to experience unnecessary thoughts, change of attitude and emotions. Love has negative manifestations not just a fairy tale. Besides that love is strength, it is also a weakness.
- Enteen, Shellie. (2010). Journey to the meaning of love. AuthorHouse.
- Oord, Thomas. (2010). Defining Love: A philosophical, scientific, and theological engagement. Brazos Press
- Simmons, Arthut. (2009). The meaning of love. Lightning Source Incorporated.
- Wagoner, Bob. (1997). The meanings of love: An introduction to philosophy of love. Praeger.
