Can You Really Make The Decision To Love And Be Loved?

Love is a word that derives from the Sanskrit word lubh which means desire. Contrary to public opinion, etymology (the origin and history of words) has an important role in understanding who we are and the meanings of the word we use. Everything has to begin somewhere. I am asserting that the concept of love and what it means began with the acknowledgment of the existence of desire and a need for its fulfillment.

Historically, we can trace the usage of a word from its origins and this can be helpful in understanding who we are as a group of people and provide some additional significance to our existence. Growing up as children we just do not care about historical roots. Life is about learning what is around us rather than what happened to our grandparents and ancestors. It is only when we become adults, and are trying to establish some meaning to our existence, does history start to become important to us; even if that history is merely seeking to discover information about our family tree, rather than an intrigue about the evolution of the world's cultures, or the rise and fall of nations and empires, or the development of science and technology.

In reality, you and I only know what we have experienced. My journey for the last fifty-four years has been my personal adventure of self-discovery. A walk in time to discover who I am and how I fit into the jigsaw puzzle of life. Your walk in time is similar. You may not have done what I have done. You may not have been where I have been. Our paths may not have crossed. Still we have both had a walk in time and we are currently walking in time. Others might say we are sitting still, and time is passing us by. Take whatever view you like. I prefer to see my life as a stroll through the park of time.

Time is now. There is no other way for me to put it. Yesterday has gone, tomorrow never comes, and today is happening. Regardless of which way you look at it, you and I exist right now. Even if we are only in each other's thoughts, it is still a now experience. Now is the time. The time is today. The seconds my have passed but the clock is true, it moves on, one tick at a time. Yet we have a history. Each one of us has an individual history. I have my own personal history. You have your own personal history. It is this history that makes you, YOU. The person who you are, blemishes, warts and all. Yet right now, whether you like it or not, you hold your future in your hand, or more to point, within your volition, regardless of what your personal history might be. You can make a decision and that decision could change the way your life will be lived from this moment and forever. Moreover, your decision could affect the lives of others. Those who are to be born and those who will never now be born, but could have been born, had you made a different decision.

Each decision you make will be based on what you desire. You will not make a decision that will go against your desires, if you are true to yourself. By that, I mean, if you truly know what you want, you will not make a decision that would be contrary to the desire to see it fulfilled. Yes, people will make sacrifices and deny themselves, at least that is what they say; and some will declare adamantly that they went against the desires of their heart, but this cannot be true. The reason I say this is people do not deny themselves. It is contrary to the rule of survival. It is contrary to the rule of life. A sacrificial offering will only be done if the person wants to make it, otherwise it ceases to be an offering at all.

You will always do what you feel is best for you. Consider a typical boy-girl situation: if the female does not desire the male, the relationship just does not happen. There are instances where a female might desire a particular male, but the male doesn't really care about her and treats her with contempt, until eventually she gets the message and the relationship ends. The male partner might then suddenly miss some aspects of the relationship, but unless he really desired his female partner, the relationship is doomed, for it will never reach the pinnacle of eternal bliss, even if she forgives him until he dies.

An Italian woman I knew, by the name of Maria, married an Italian hairdresser by the name of Nino. He was always chasing other women and having affairs. They had three children together and eventually she divorced him, because her husband was living out more often than he was living in. Even after the divorce was granted, this guy would turn up broke at her doorstep and weasel his way insider her house and live there for weeks on end, until he found some other woman who would share her bed with him until she got sick of his drinking, gambling and playing the field still. When each affair finished, he would come back to Maria. This went on for three decades after they had divorced. When he died, Nino was living at his ex-wife's house. Maria would always take Nino in because she felt compassion for him. She claimed she still loved him, even though he was selfish, mean and unloving to her and their children.

Here is another true story. Joy was a woman who always got what she wanted. She did what she wanted and liked to be in control. Joy did not take kindly to anybody telling her what to do. Joy was engaged to be married to what was the best looking bachelor she knew at the time, but he just did not like being told what to do, so he jilted her and made off with someone else. Joy found solace in Max. Max did whatever she wanted. She could boss him around and be the top bitch she was used to being. They got married and had four children. But Joy had a problem. While Max desired someone to order him around and Joy desired someone to order around, Max had no desire to be physically intimate in bed.. Max had a very low libido. Joy was hot to trot. She wanted sex and plenty of it. Having to order Max to make the most of his conjugal rights every night was like having a fight. She thought to give Max the flick but decided to have the best of both worlds. She found herself a lover for the day, bossed Max around at night. Every just seemed right. Max was pleased to have a woman tell him what to do without a nightly fight over a marital right. The arrangement suited Max down to the ground. He really seemed to lap it up. In fact, his eyes would light up, when he was given his orders. He was like a faithful dog who would always come when his master whistled. And Joy's dreams had come true. Her desires were being satisfied. Oh, and there were the other men (one could have been Nino).

Here we have two different accounts of gender selfishness. Each account tells a different story that is as similar as they are dissimilar. What the accounts of these people's relationships tell us is selfishness is a one way street that requires someone else to fulfill the desires of the selfish person. The selfish person would say that those people who do not meet his or her desires are being unloving. In fact, Joy felt Max did not love her. Whereas, Max on the other hand, thought Joy loved him and their relationship was really fine. Nino thought life was all about himself and getting his cravings satisfied, whereas Maria only knew one man in her life and could not bear seeing him feel unloved, so she was always prepared to feed him and give him a place to stay, even when she was a pensioner and he would not give her a cent.

What many people will say regarding these two relationships is Nino and Joy are extremely selfish and Max and Maria are very selfless, sacrificial and loving towards their partners. In reality, Max and Maria might appear to be making sacrificial offerings of their lives, but they are only doing what comes natural for them and fulfilling the selfish drive of their own desires to be wanted and praised by someone who is willing to let them be what they are comfortable being.

What is commonly perceived to be love is really people fulfilling their desires to be needed. Some people cry out in pain because they feel their needs are not being met. While others are aching inside because they cannot find someone who wants them enough to let them fulfill their desire to serve them in a possessive way or subservient way. The one's who are doing all the running around at other people's behest are doing this because they are simply fulfilling their desires. While this might seem wrong or inappropriate or demeaning to many people, the likes of Maria and Max are finding some form of satisfaction in fulfilling their desires.

Ask people what love means to them and you will get different answers based upon how their desires have been corralled, shaped, funneled or fulfilled as children. The irony of it all is what people call love is really an infatuation with somebody else appeasing their own desires.

In truth, we love people not for themselves but for ourselves, because the people we love are the people who are meeting the needs of our desires; or quenching the thirst within us for acknowledgment and acceptance, or fulfilling the yearning to be somebody to someone else in a manner which we feel makes sense to us because we feel comfortable in the relationship.

Is there a decision involved in our claim to love, or are we sculptured by our upbringing to fall for circumstantial evidence as being the truth we long to believe? For the average person in the Western World, where people make their own choice of a marriage partner, this is not really true. It may appear to be so on the surface, but all we are really doing is following our own desires to be infatuated with something that we falsely perceive, and want to believe, is true.

The majority of relationships have difficulties because the partners or lovers are really falling in love with an ideal rather than the truth. Most people will love their partners because of what they want to love in their partners rather than actually love their partners for who they really are. It is more a case of "I love you for myself, rather than I love you for yourself." Often when the honeymoon is over and the fragrance of the red roses has gone, a realization of loss turns into grief and the relationship is finished; even if the couple spend the rest of their lives in the same nest.

Oddly enough, arranged marriages are different beasts. This is a love feast where falling in love goes unheard. Learning to love is more about learning to appreciate the other person rather than being infatuated with one's own belief. Both parties have to make a decision to love the other party from the word "go". The relationship is about two people being committed to finding out how to love each other and appreciate what each other can bring to the marriage, rather than waking up one morning and discovering the infatuation is gone and the process of grieving begins over its loss.

The pain associated with the loss of infatuation leads to divorce. Countries where arranged marriages are the norm do not have divorce rates any where near the 55% that is occurring in westernized societies. Arranged marriages have divorce rates of between 0-7%, depending on the culture. There is no falling out of love, so the divorce rate is low. Instead of falling out of love, people are learning how to love. We could even say arranged marriages are about learning how to desire each other. Although, the emphasis might be more on desiring to see the marriage as a working partnership rather than the participants being stained by their lack of character; their lack of faithfulness, their lack of loyalty, and their lack of commitment.

One couple, I know, just recently got married only to discover they had some issues with conjugal rights. At this point of time, money was not an issue. The bride's parents are very wealthy and the bridegroom is earning a seven figure sum per annum running a very profitable business. You see, like most people who get married, the issue was dealing with each other's incompatibilities. Often such things as personal habits can be the leverage for a hemorrhaging of lost love; therefore these need to be confronted and treated as challenges for an adventurous relationship rather than an excuse for hostilities to explode. This requires making a decision to re-channel misdirected desires into a funnel of love and lovemaking, rather than being an excuse to flee the nest or become an eternal pest. With the decision made to learn how to love and receive love, this couple have what looks to be a marriage made in heaven, rather than suffering from a terminal case of cement cancer in the concrete jungles on earth, where the cement falls away and the building collapses.

You can make a decision to love and be loved. In order to do so, however, you need to be able to define love. Then ensure that your partner has a similar understanding to want to love and be loved, so your relationship can become the vehicle where you both discover the riches of heart-felt intimacy. Bear in mind, if you make a decision to love another person for his-or herself, unless they want to love you for yourself, the relationship does not become the vehicle for reciprocal appreciation you desire. Nonetheless, a relationship where two partners morph into a unified expression of individuality in oneness is the epitome of love and should be sought. However, without a rational understanding of what is being sought by both parties a unified expression of individuality is not going to be achieved. In which case, a etymological understanding of what the word love means is very helpful for enlightenment. It certainly enlightened me.