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Unconditional Love Part 3-My Conclusion

 

Love.Love. Love. Easy to feel and hard to understand. It’s a simple yet complex emotion and often over analyzed. Love is love. Period.

I originally began writing about the existence of unconditional love about a month ago. (Check out Unconditional Love Parts 1 and 2 here) I couldn’t bring myself to write a conclusion because I didn’t have one yet, but now I do so here it is.

Unconditional love DOES exist.

1. I know for a fact God loves me unconditionally. How do I know this? Because good things keep happening, despite my flawed human behavior my prayers are still answered. And I love him back, so that’s that.

2. My parents love me unconditionally. They just do and always will.

3. I love my parents unconditionally. I just do and always will.

4. I love my family and those I consider family unconditionally. I just do and always will.

With that being said I realized one thing. The condition is not love, it’s like. Love does not have conditions, you love someone or you don’t. There are various types of love, but love is love. I think when people start to experience a different type of love they think they have fallen out of love when really they have just transitioned into a different type of love.

“What about hate?” you say, “Certainly you can’t love someone you hate.”

I shall give you the gift of my favorite quote on the subject matter.

 “Isn’t hate merely the result of wounded love?” -Amy Tan

When you ‘hate’ someone you are experiencing wounded love. Still love, anyway you spin it.

Moving on…

After coming to this conclusion I was still wondering what I was feeling when I just absolutely did not like a person. Then it dawned on me… LIKE! That’s the answer! the opposite of like is dislike (obviously). So basically my understanding is this: You love some people and others you have never loved; but whether or not you like or dislike them it has nothing to do with love lost or gained. ‘Like’ is a different emotion with its own category and it is indeed completely conditional.

Love and Like,

Miss J

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Unconditional Love Part 2

 

Last week, I wrote a post about the existence of unconditional love. 

 Unconditional Love Part 1

 I thought love would be hard to define, but as it turns out several people have already done so. The Merrian-Webster Dictionary defines Love as: 

 Screen shot 2013-01-23 at 10.12.32 AM

 

While this definition is accurate (obviously), I was more interested in finding different categories of love. In addition to having our own love language, which is how we communicate love; we also love differently at the core. John Lee divided these types of love into 6 categories of love style. They are as follows:

Eros: a passionate physical and emotional love based on aesthetic enjoyment; stereotype of romantic Love. 

My thoughts: So basically this means as long as you are happy and enjoy that person, you love them. Not unconditional.

 

Ludus: a love that is played as a game or sport; conquest; may have multiple partners at once.

MyThoughts: Non-committal love. Going to go ahead and say this is probably conditional too. The condition being who’s bed you are in that night.

 

Storge: An affectionate love that slowly develops from friendship, based on similarity.

My Thoughts: This has to be unconditional, right? You love them because they are like you and you are friends. But what if one person changes? Maybe this one has conditions too. 

 

Pragma: Love that is driven by the head, not the heart; undemonstrative.

My Thoughts: I think it would be difficult to logically love someone unconditionally. You have to leave matters of the heart to the heart. Your head is no place for unconditional love because it’s already occupied by your conditions. 

 

Mania: obsessive love; experience great emotional highs and lows; very possessive and often jealous lovers.

My Thoughts: Going to leave this one alone for now. Obsession is not love and the condition is craziness. 

 

Agape: selfless altruistic love

My Thoughts: This has to be unconditional. If you truly love someone selflessly, you can love them no matter what. Conditions aside. 

 

Well, that was kind of a bust! I was hoping more of the categories would show some promising traits of unconditional love. At least now, I know moving forward, unconditional love requires complete selflessness. And so the journey continues…

Love, 

Miss J

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© LoveJays 2013

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Unconditional Love Part 1

This will probably be a 2 or 3 parter so bear with me!

During the holiday season I had a conversation that really struck a chord. My family and I were sitting around the dinner table and a family member brought up the concept of unconditional love. His argument was that unconditional love does not really exist because everyone’s love has conditions. 

Admittedly I was quick to agree. It made perfect sense. For example, I have a HUGE problem with cheating. I don’t understand it and I see it as a valid reason to terminate a relationship. Ergo my love has a limit and/or condition. Some challenged the idea; however eventually,like me, they were pretty quick to accept love is indeed conditional. 

The conversation died down just as fast as it started and soon we were back to talking about turkey and family gossip, but I couldn’t shake the realization that unconditional love does not and never did exist. 

From that point on I went on a “love bender”. I was devastated. How is it that I am not capable of loving unconditionally? Wait a minute,  if that’s true than the reverse must be too. I can’t be loved unconditionally? What a cruel joke life had pulled! 

I decided I was going to have to find the answer for myself. If it turned out to be true, fine. I would just have to deal with it. If it turned out to be false, awesome! So for the next couple of weeks I will take you through my journey and what I discovered about unconditional love. 

In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Do you think love has conditions? If yes, why? If no, why not? I want to hear from you!

Love, 

Miss J 

See Unconditional Love Part 2 here!

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© LoveJays 2013

While we ponder love’s conditions, listen to this song about falling in love having a condition 🙂 How did I not notice this before?! 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfAb0gNPy6s]