Definition Essay - Defining Love Affection, devotion, passion, desire, warmth, respect or loyalty. You choose. It doesn't really matter which one because they are all forms of love. Some are powerful and demand attention while others are more subtle and just below the surface. In recent years, love has drifted from these subtle levels to the more noticeable ones, namely passion. In my opinion, our society downplays the real necessity for genuine affection. By this I mean that we, as a society, spend so much time focusing on only one level of love (passion) that we tend to neglect and not recognize the need for closeness and trust (friendship). Love is an all-encompassing emotion that can be powerful and demanding, but also rewarding and pleasurable. Love is commitment. To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Commitment can be called the backbone or building block of love. In other words, commitment is needed in order to build a stable and trusting relationship. Without commitment, love would not be able to grow and flourish. It can be extremely demanding on someone who isn't ready or sure that they want to commit to another person. I do have to admit that sometimes this can be extremely difficult and may leave one feeling a bit vulnerable. Commitment is the ability to take a risk and to accept the possibility of disappointment or pain. Again, I have to agree that commitment can be demanding, but to look on the bright side, it can also be rewarding. To be able to stay in a committed relationship, says a great deal about a person; at least it does to me. Love is sharing. By this I mean to share one's life, feelings, and downfalls; not just one's personal property. Sharing is being honest about yourself and allowing the other person involved in the relationship to really get to know who you really are. It takes more strength and courage to be able to share in a relationship. It has been my experience (which hasn't been that long) that sharing keeps the relationship growing. Not only do you share life experiences, both new and old, but also you learn to communicate. Communication is a very important aspect of sharing. Just being able to communicate your problems or solutions with each other is a step in the right direction to a loving relationship. So many marriages or friendships in recent years have ended simply because the couple could not communicate and share their feelings. Sharing is not an easy thing to do, but it is fundamental to the success of a relationship. Love is compassion. Compassion is being able to care about the feelings of another. It is understanding and listening to the loved one's needs and desire's. To me, in order to have compassion one must first feel empathy towards another person. Compassion and empathy go hand in hand. They are the state of being ultimately concerned about the health and welfare of another person. Love is faith. This has to be the most difficult form of love to conquer. Most of the time when people discuss faith they are referring to the relationship that they, as individuals, have with their particular God(s). I believe that having faith in a God(s) is important, but faith should not be limited to religious deities. Faith can be applied to "normal, everyday" person to person relationships as well. In a marriage, you have faith that your partner will be monogamous and supporting. Of course, when referring to a friendship, family member or coworker one must also have faith that the loved one will be honest and forthright with you. There are so many levels to faith that we should not forget or ignore them. It takes a great deal of faith to have a good relationship with another person. Love is forgiving. The ability to forgive is a great showing of love towards a loved one. I believe that because we are human we will make mistakes and should be forgiven for those mistakes. We have no "real" right to judge anyone else for their mistakes because we are just as susceptible to them. Now I'm not referring to murder, rape or infidelity. I mean the common mistakes that the average individual makes everyday. People need to realize that we, as a society, have our flaws and that not everyone is going to faultless all the time. We need to "forgive" those we love of small indiscretions and allow for individuality otherwise this world will never evolve. Forgiveness shouldn't be hard to give or earn. If only we (humans) could see how artificial and trivial the thousands of boundaries we have created to separate and divide us really are. Humans separate themselves not only by class or gender, but also by color, religion, or nationality. I believe that we have only one choice in life and that is to love other people and forgive them when they need to be. This choice can only be made if we overcome our fears, our distrust of each other, and our assumption of separateness. I know that that sounds romantic, but it is still a hope of mine. It has taken me years and some tough experiences to realize that love is necessary in every form. It doesn't matter if it is to a friend, spouse, parent, or child. Love is love in any form. People need to use it more often. I once read a passage from the Bible about love and it has always stuck with me. "Deep waters cannot quench Love, nor floods wash it away." (Songs 8:7) Love is powerful and beautiful if one knows how to show and possess it. Granted it can cause problems, but it has answers too. To say that love is subjective would be an understatement, but in order to have it we must first look within ourselves. Love is having compassion for others, sharing feelings and your life with another person, as well as, having faith in others and forgiving those we love for the any errs that they may make. Most of all, we must be committed to those we love. Of course, this is only my opinion. No matter how long I try to explain what love is ultimately it is up to you, the reader, to define what love is to you. So let me leave you now with the words of the great Humanist Erich Fromm, "Can anything be learned about the art of love, except by practicing it?"
One of the key issues of the play was FATE. You could say all of the
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he Power of Love Love is a powerful emotion that affects everyone at some time in their lives. According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, love is defined as a feeling of strong and constant affection for someone(1). Love can refer to the feelings between a couple in a romantic relationship, or it can refer to the affection one would have with a friend. When love is shown, each person cares about the other. Sometimes, love can be hypnotizing, causing one to do something they would not do normally.
Love is affection, devotion, passion, desire, warmth, respect or loyalty. You choose. It doesn't really matter which one because they are all forms of love. Some are powerful and demand attention while others are more subtle and just below the surface. In recent years, love has drifted from these subtle levels to the more noticeable ones, namely passion. In my opinion, our society downplays the real necessity for genuine affection. By this I mean that we, as a society, spend so much time focusing on only one level of love (passion) that we tend to neglect and not recognize the need for closeness and trust (friendship). Love is an all-encompassing emotion that can be powerful and demanding, but also rewarding and pleasurable.
Love is an interpersonal relationship developed, maintained, and possibly destroyed through communication, but also can be enhanced by communication. Love is often described as a feeling of closeness, caring, intimacy and commitment between two people. There are six different types of love: eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania, and
Love is not usually well defined. People often think that they are in love, but they can�t explain it. There is a great dealing of confusion of the words love, and infatuation. Love may include romance, infatuation, affection and tenderness. But it could be love if one or more of the elements are not present. The definition of love varies from person to person. Love is essential element for all relationships. Much of what is written about love is either brief or mocking. Society in general is very cruel and heartless toward real love of any kind. Modern writing mocks marriages, husbands and wives, but condones adultery, and other obscene values. Real love is a mystery to most people. Most people never realize the true potential or value of love, nor do they learn to practice the art of love.
The Definition of Love Love by definition is an emotion explored in philosophy, religion, and literature, often as either romantic love, the fraternal love of others, or the love of God based on the definition found in The Encarta Encyclopedia. As I explored the definitions through the Internet, books, and articles, I noticed the definitions changed quite a bit, but yet had the same basic understanding. The definition I found in The Encarta Encyclopedia is probably the most simple and most basic. It refers to love in the whole aspect, which is Godly, fraternal, and romantic. All of which can only be defined by one word and that is love.
Love is the most powerful emotion that most of us will ever experience. People can do some grateful things out of hate and fear, but love can push us to do much, much worse. It is often love can cause us to hate, whether it is out of jealousy, or anger because our loved one has been hurt. Love, ultimately, is a sacrifice, whatever the relationship, and it must be the most powerful force in the universe because as human true sacrifices for nothing less.
Love is a successful key to marriage because if you don’t love a person how can you spend a lifetime with them. What is love? Love is a force of nature. However much we may want to, we can not command, demand, or take away love, any more than we can command the moon and the stars and the wind and the rain to come and go according to our whims. We may have some limited ability to change the weather, but we do so at the risk of upsetting an ecological balance we don 't fully understand. You have to have Love in order to even begin a marriage. Love cares what becomes of you because love knows that we are all interconnected. Love is inherently compassionate and empathic. Love knows that the "other" is also oneself. This is the true nature of love and love itself can not be manipulated or restrained. Love honors the sovereignty of each soul. Love is its own law. What is not love? Love is not what the movies and hit songs tell us it is. Love doesn’t hurt. If it hurts it’s something else. Fear. Attachment. Idolatry. Addiction. Possessiveness. Nobody’s heart aches out of love. In pop culture, love gets conflated with desire all the time. From childhood we learn you can like something, or you can love it, as if it’s only different degrees of the ...
Love is what drives your heart, it is what fuels human passion. Part of what makes you a human being is the biological ability express love like no other living creature. We not only love, but feed from others love. Loving is not the only necessity, but receiving love is also necessary for a healthy state of mind. Being loved gives you a sense of security, a sense of importance, of wontedness. A life without love would be lonely, sad, dark, and in a constant state of depression. I myself cannot imagine not loving nor not being loved. Loving is part of what separates us from other animals, the human way of loving is unique to our species and it is something we all share in
According to the Oxford American Dictionary “.Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection”. This is the “officially accepted” definition of love. Nevertheless, it is necessary to mention that love is a notion that has caused many arguments concerning its meaning throughout the ages. Many people have tried their best to define this phenomenon but each person puts individual interpretation in it and therefore as a priori there cannot be any objective definition of the term “love”. Love in psychological terms does not contain only positive aspects as it is usually stated.
First, we need to know what love is in order to identify it. From a biblical point of view, love is defined as, “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud (Corinthians 13:4)” It goes on to include that love is not selfish, not disrespectful, it forgives, trusts, hopes, and protects. The Four Loves, written by C.S. Lewis, defines love as a focus on another person and accepting him/her completely for who he/she is. It is the unselfish giving of yourself. Love and other emotions: On the process of feeling, by Jason Brown, defines love as a source of importance and value.
What is love? Love is a very special and meaningful word to each human being. Each human being has his/her own thoughts about love to guide himself/herself to land safely and smoothly into the kingdom of Love. Without this preconceived idea of love, people would be acting like a blind person searching for the light with thousand of obstacles in front of him.
Decision/commitment refers to the belief that one is in love and committed to a certain romantic relationship. This bond may be as informal as a phrase that states they want to date exclusively, or it might be as formal as a ring of gold that bonds them forever. This commitment is exclusive between partners, which both need to feel an equal level of commitment, which they need to decide together. These three aspects involve no certain amount of time. It depends on the person or persons and the level of the relationship.
Poets and philosophers for centuries have been trying to answer the question, what is love? Love has an infinite number of definitions, which vary from one person to another. Love cannot be measured by any physical means. One may never know what true love is until love it- self has been experienced. What is love? A four letter word that causes a person to behave in a way that is out of character. What is love? A first kiss, childhood crushes on a teacher or friend’s mom. What is love? A choice that people make by putting their partner’s wishes, desires and needs above everything else. What is love? The act of forgiveness, the infatuation with someone, the communication between two people. What is love? A friendship that turned into a lifelong commitment, that special someone who has vowed to spend the rest of their lives to honor and protect, to love each other “till death do you part.” When in love nothing else in the world matters. According to the online Encarta Dictionary love is the passionate feeling of romantic and sexual desire and longing for somebody. Poets and philosophers may never know what love really is, and we may never truly understand the question what is love.