I found myself having a taste of love recently. It was in the form of a friendship that became more for me. One that filled up little caverns of longing I forgot existed. Because I knew that friendship could be the basis of an enormous heartbreak down the road I realized that I hadn’t really chosen greatness over love after all. That my desire for romantic love was just lying dormant.
“…faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” the bible
“All you need is love.” John Lennon
etc.
Throughout time artists, philosophers, poets and everyone else who has ever published anything about human relationships has come to the conclusion that the very fundamental drive in our lives is love. We do it all for love…greatness included.
The problem – and I’m pretty sure this has been my core driver – is that love also can become such an enormous disappointment that we tell ourselves all sorts of stories about not needing it. Not wanting it. Being above it. Whatever we can possibly tell ourselves that will dull the aching need to have it. Psychology Today had a brilliant little piece this month about the worst advice we’ve been given. I think that the worst advice I ever got was that “you couldn’t love anyone else until you love yourself.” Why? It seems so sound, right? Well sure. Self-esteem is important and, for most people, is a long road and ongoing process. The world is full of self-doubt and people who will let you know you won’t make the grade. But I think better advice is that you can’t receive external validation for something that is lacking internally…but denying yourself love until you get there isn’t positive either. And truly, how does one even know what one is missing unless one experiences it?
Sure, Lady Gaga’s recent quote in Cosmo made me jump for joy:
Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.
Because it captured that ennui I had been feeling for so long regarding love. Something so fundamental to our lives had become an utter disappointment for me so I wanted to reject it outright and embrace something that I could actually control. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s like being hungry. You can only ignore the stomache pains for so long, but then there are more adverse effects on your body. Love is like hunger. It’s essential to living.
I think I read it in Goleman’s Social Intelligence, but there is actual research on how heartbreak DOES lead to death. It’s slow and it works in tandem with a weakened overall system, but a human being without love will eventually die. That’s why you see widows and widowers pass away shortly after the death of their partner. Our bodies work better when we have love.
Now sure, I always have love. I have my son, my dog, my family, my friends and my worldwide community of amazing interweb friends who show me uber amounts of love. Therefore, I’m in no threat of keeling over from lack of human connection. But having a taste of someone I can build a deeper, more intimate, more meaningful relationship with made me realize that mentally, I could really use the occasional ‘rock’ to lean on to help me grow. The problem has been that, to date, my ‘rocks’ have been rocky and the results of that in my life have left me mentally more anguished than satisfied. In my case, my heartbreaks didn’t lead to physical death, but they definitely led to metaphorical illnesses – where each one scarred me a little more emotionally.
And the biggest issue is me, of course. I’m the common denominator here who can’t just fall in love a little. I’m a jump in with both feet kind of girl, often leaping far before I’ve decided to look which has led to some really bad decisions. Decisions that were bound to leave me disappointed. And so here I am after taking several years now to avoid love and focus on greatness feeling like I’m missing something that I know I’ve been terrible at identifying in the past anyway.
But I’m rethinking it. I’m recognizing it. And even though I haven’t changed as a person (still can’t seem to fall in love slowly), I think I’m a little more aware of who I am and what I need. And guess what? I need love. Because that is, at the end of each day, the meaning of life.
This being said, I’m not about to dive in head first without looking like I used to. No more bad decisions. And I’m also going to try and balance the two – love and greatness – which means the love will have to be a net positive in my life and the greatness can’t be obsessive. So for all of you who, on the original post, told me I was being too narrow about this…you were right. Because it’s not about choosing between one or the other, but recognizing that both are complicated and hard to accomplish, but cannot exist isolated from one or the other.
So yeah. I choose both. And even though that scares the bejeebus out of me, I’m kind of excited to see where this new direction leads.
EAVB_IPXKRRWMJC
I love being able to say, “…told you so.”
And I also spit out my coffee when I read the Gaga quote to women re: following a man vs. your dream: “remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.” I *distinctly* remember tens of thousands of us in tech did indeed wake up one day to the sound of the dot com crash, where investors and employers were quite clear: “it was just a fling”
Go you!
This post really draws me in. I think love is the most important thing in the world, and romantic love is great if you’re a teenager in a band and you want to write songs. (Which is pretty much what I was until, say thirty.) Love is a great thing to give, and not a nice thing to want to receive. Although, once I got over my need for validation, I found that receiving it was nice too.
I love the enthusiasm that you bring to your work, your relationships with your son and your pug, your occasion al forays into drunken karaoke, and the rich, sustain ing friendships you share with your girlfriends.
So yeah, choose both. I got drunk with my good friend Patrick a while back, and we were talking about dating and he totally sideswiped me when he said it’s all about saying yes versus saying no. You can either be a hundred percent into it, not knowing whether it will last two weeks or a life time, or you can be ruled by fear. I kinda get him, but I’m still slightly fond of fear. So, choose both, and in with both feet.
Hi Tara – don’t forget DC Talk: “Love is a verb”… that requires some action. There are feelings, sure, but the actions are more important. Love is a decision as you’ve so eloquently described!
- Matt H
I was in a talk about Happiness today. One of the points that was quoted as making us happy is love and the speaker showed us a graph that shows the stages in which different kinds of love (passionate love and “partners love”)are as the relationship grows. So maybe other bad advice we’ve been given is that love is just one love and the truth is that even in a relationship with one person there are more types of love involved.
I think that identifying them and knowing when those amounts are right it’s a good way to know if a partner is a life partner or not.
They also showed us the effect of passionate love on the brain and that there was little difference between the brain of a person highly in love (passionate) and a person high on cocaine.
I agree that there should be a balance and that both love and greatness can be attained together.
Here’s to balance and a rich, lasting relationship for both of you.
@Sam I’m still very much single. My friend didn’t return my affections, which is okay (happens, right?). But the upside was that I figured out what I really wanted and that is what counts.
@Kathy Yes…you told me so. Now…I need to find that somebody to prove my new theory right!
I have faith…
@Gordon Saying Yes to everything? I think I may still be a little in the cautious camp myself, but I’m willing to try. There are oodles of oddballs out there (I used to date them, I should know!).
@Matt Oh yes. I’m ready to make love that verb alright.
@Jorge Love=addiction and, man, that feeling is awesome. I just want to make sure it’s not a bad addiction.
What an exquisitely-written post from your heart and soul – it resonated, in part, with me and i am sure many others. Your thoughts on “first love yourself”… but/and make sense to me. You are a treasure… and I hope you keep on both path
The feeling is awesome. I think that the idea is to have passionate love, which has ups and downs be reinvented by the couple over and over. Meanwhile companionship love is growing steadily as the partners get to know each other and embrace their similarities and differences.
From my experience it’s hard to get, but we’re still young! If love is there, we’re always young.
The part of your post that resonated for me was the examination of the old saw “you can’t love another till you love yourself”.
Buddhist meditation, particularly Vipassana metta (lovingkindness meditation) is about creating compassion for others through self-compassion. Buddhists around the world are taught–much like the lil yellow oxygen masks that pop from airplane ceilings– to help themselves before helping others. Buddhism also embraces a form of centeredness that deliberately eschews leaning, grasping, delusion and aversion in favor of being upright and paying attention to the present moment.
As far as Lady Gaga, “following” works well on Twitter, but not in the long run. In the long run everyone has to take turns leading and following.
Anyhow, great post.
Miko
“you couldn’t love anyone else until you love yourself.” This is the best advice ever! I don’t understand why you think it’s the worst. The problem is with all of us is we try to look/expect something from our significant other and when they disappoint us we think it’s their fault. Or at least that was my case. I’ve learned that statement is true. I am in a relationship and we’re very happy together. And when we’re apart, I feel sad and disappointed. Then I start to think that maybe I wasn’t really happy after all. And I agree with Matt H. that love is a verb. When we love, we shouldn’t be thinking about what we’re getting but about what we’re giving. Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to be a doormat and let the other person do horrible things to you. And as for people who stopped loving you, well good riddance to them! Sure it hurts, but when you’ve calmed down you can tell yourself this: They are the ones who never really knew what love truly meant. Love is more than just a fleeting feeling of joy and happiness. In marriage vows, did they not say in sickness and health, in happiness and sorrow, in any circumstance?
But I for one am glad that you have not given up on love. I know it’s a cliche but I’ll say it anyway. I believe it makes the whole world go round.
PS…Here’s another interesting article on the healing power of not just love but relationships: http://sn.im/w6s7q Enjoy!
Everyone has a desire to be loved. The hard part is knowing you are not ready to be involved with anyone.
I watched the George Clooney movie, “Up in the Air” last night. Four full stars from Roger Ebert and lots of thought-provoking content about work and balance and loss and gain…
Your posts about love and greatness came to mind as I watched it.
I still say that starting a dating site based on Whuffie is the way to go for you.
Beautifully written – thank you for sharing something so personal. I stopped my blast through Google reader to open this and read with consideration. Cheers.