In 1967, John Lennon wrote a song called, “All You Need is Love.” He also beat both of his wives, abandoned one of his children and once had a camera crew film him lying naked in his bed for an entire day. This man obviously lacked a clear and realistic understanding of love really is.
Many of us idealize love to be the solution to all our problems. We think the moment we find love, our problems vanish. Hollywood’s romantic movies and stories celebrates love as life’s ultimate goal, the final solution for all of our pain and struggle. When we overestimate love, our relationships pay the deadly price.
Ask any person who has being with a partner for a long time, they will tell you love is not what has kept them together rather fundamental values such as respect, friendship, humility and commitment, which they both possess has kept them together. Healthy relationships require more than pure emotion or lofty passions. We must understand that there are things more important in our lives and our relationships than simply being in love and the success of our relationships hinges on these more important values.
Maybe we could start by trashing some of these unrealistic expectations about love. Let us we start with trashing the believe that being in love with a person, automatically makes the both of you compatible and good enough to take it to the next step. That is one big lie we have held on to for a very long time. I have being in relationship ,where we were both very much in love, omg I mean madly in love. I could literally see myself becoming wify already but guess what? We didn't even last a year because we were just not COMPATIBLE. If your relationship is ever going to last, then you have to drop the emotions for a while and think logically. Compatibility is the logical process in a relationship. It means "the both of you are not perfect but you are a good match for each other."
While I believe love is worth sacrificing your desires, your needs and your time for, I strongly believe it is not worth sacrificing yourself for. Love is not worth sacrificing yourself, as a matter of fact you have to love yourself and honor yourself before you can ver be able to love and honor another person fully. When you sacrifice your self respect, dignity, physical body, life ambitions and life purpose just to be in a relationship, that same love becomes problematic. The only way you can fully enjoy the love in your life is to choose to make something else more important in your life than love. Make potentially important things like your self respect and dignity, come first before love. Don't ever loose your self respect and dignity just because you are trying to make a relationship work. Always put these important things first. Don't ever loose them because they very hard to get back.
Love is a wonderful experience. It’s one of the greatest experiences life has to offer. And it is something everyone should aspire to feel and enjoy. But like any other experience, it can be healthy or unhealthy. Like any other experience, it cannot be allowed to define us, our identities or our life purpose. We cannot let it consume us. We cannot sacrifice our identities and self-worth to it. Because the moment we do that, we lose love and we lose ourselves.
Love is great. Love is necessary. Love is beautiful. But love is not enough. Love alone is not enough. It really isn't. This news may not sound romantic, but it is so so so true.
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