HAS LOVE FAILED OR HUMANS HAVE FAILED LOVE?.
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PROLOGUE
It is an immutable fact that Man’s deepest need is to love and be loved. Dr. John Dewey put it plainly, as quoted from Dale Carnegie's book titled "How to Win friends and influence People", that "The deepest urge in human nature is the desire to be important”. If I may put in another way, love is the oxygen of life. Without enough of it, we suffocate and choke.
What is love?
Love has many definitions, but for this article, I will delineate love to Merriam Webster definitions:
A quality or feeling of strong or constant affection for and dedication to another.
Attraction based on sexual desire: the strong affection and tenderness felt by lovers.
Is it devoid of The Formative Years' Experiences?
In her YouTube lecture on the formative years of Early Childhood, “Findings on Brain Development in the First Five Years in Life | 92Y Parenting & Family” Prof. JoAnn Deak avers that these first five years are the crucial years of development. They have a bearing on an adult later in life, and therefore must be taken seriously as regards feeding and nurturing. Portwood, a psychologist for 25 years reinforces the importance of these years as follows,"the experiences in the first five years are crucial to the development of social skills, personality, cognitive skills, thinking skills, decision-making, ability to concentrate and behaviour". These years, no doubt, have a bearing on one's life - perhaps even as an adult. It is absolutely possible, raise children and fail to detach them from narcissism.
Is love some sort of Rabbit Hole?
Dr. Myles Munroe once said, “Love does not make marriage work – wisdom does” Proverbs 4:7 KJV holds true that, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding”.
Is love devoid of wisdom?, Where must one draw the line between "madly in love", "crazy in love" and "sheer lack of knowledge and wisdom"? Does it punctuate life, so much so that without it, life becomes meaningless? What is eros love after all? Is it worth dying for - even to the point of giving precious life to the "dogs" and unworthy causes?. Isn't passion without knowledge, some sort of high way to destruction?. I ask all the above, in the light of the following article - FATAL ATTRACTION: Idi Amin’s untold love triangle via this URL https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/magazine/Idi-Amins-untold-love-triangle/434746-5254862-msm2v7z/index.html
Commitment
Even as the bible commends the mother’s love, it doesn’t come effortlessly. The mother commits to loving their child despite their shortcomings and botched expectations. It takes commitment and hard work therefore, to birth and sustain anything of value. Relationships aren’t an exception to this idea. They don’t grow by mistake and neither by accident, they must be intentional. When you fall in love, understand that there’s time to stand in love too. In his book Destiny TD jakes intimates that as he shared with Coretta Scott King – a wife to Martin Luther King Jr., asking her why she never remarried after the murder of husband. The answer he received, his reputation notwithstanding, took his breath away. “I was called to be his wife,” she said. “It was my destiny to stand beside him.”
Reciprocation of love
Parents are mandated to give love to their children and the children are expected to reciprocate it to their parents when they grow up and also pass it on to the rest, including their children accordingly. Children by nature are narcissistic to no fault of their own for they don’t know any better. It is dangerous however, to transition with this narcissism into adulthood and fail at the every least, reciprocating this same love to our parents or Guardians.
How can you claim to love me you have never met and yet hate the neighbor you see everyday?.
When God saw loved the world, John 3:16, he did not only write it a love letter but also gave his only begotten son. Blessed therefore is a hand that gives than the one that takes.
Find fulfillment, purpose and happiness in offering love. Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
I want to believe that love is not a stranger to the “principle of reciprocity”. In his sermon, “When God Gets Hungry” Bishop TD Jakes illustrates this principle very vividly.
Narcissism
Paul in his letter to 1 Corinthians 13:11 puts it vividly,” When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” A child has all the rights to be narcissistic. Everything levitates around them and they don’t know any better anyway, with adult narcissism is an inexcusable vice.
It must not always be about you boo! Learn to celebrate, appreciate and respect others, in as much as you would like them to reciprocate.
It can be argued therefore that our failure to shed off narcissism mostly, has failed relationships, marriages etc. It is impossible to truly love a narcissistic adult.
Entitlement and Social Media
The internet is nebulous. How we use it is what makes it either good or bad. There’s certainly no place, our vulnerabilities and personalities come through like social media. We feel entitled to say anything, anyhow and anywhere sometimes with little forethought. We are so insecure some of us cannot afford to use our real names on our pages probably for secret service missions – if you will.
Our entitlement, may in a way be a reflection of a deeply seated, yet subconscious desire to be loved appreciated and validated. The problem is; we seek all this in a wrong place. We therefore mistake social media users for our emotional bank, hoping that they will feel an ever widening canyon in our love thirsty hearts.
Any celebrity knows this. There’s a difference between fans and friends. Conflating the two is a recipe for disaster. They too need love, meaningful and deep relationships than merely followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. It is no different with you and as you apportion your energy time and resources, know where they count most.
Side Dishes and the longevity of Marriage
Society today celebrates “side dishes” and debates them on TV. Our consent has been engineered to register them as a natural and normal occurrence. The problem is, we rant, opine and whine, when our marriages, relationships are dissolved over them. How in the world do we expect to undo a vice we dutifully practice half of our lives just because we are getting married? Do we hope to find a miracle cure or some sort of silver bullet for it?
Dating
Any venture that is not built on a solid foundation and purpose will fail. Success is Intentional; it does not bother those that do not attract it. Mr. Saint-Exupery once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish”. Without a definitive purpose, commitment is nothing more than a vapor in the wind. Aimless pursuits are akin Bob Dylan's concept in the song – Blowin’ the wind. In one of the lines he asks a rhetoric question, "How many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?. You guessed it right, the answer is blowin' in the wind.
Ex Syndrome
For most people, it is not remorseful to share their past failed relationships, sometimes with a misguided exuberance and hubris. Instead, they do it cheerfully as though it was an experience they added onto their Socio CV. We don’t pause to ask the important questions.
1. Why must one like to accumulate Exs and not retakes for example?
2. Is Failure fashionable enough to merit glorification?
The First question speaks to the mindset one holds and the value they attach to the relationship but a rather more pertinent introspection question should be; why can’t I form deep and meaningful relationships?
The Verdict
Has love failed me or have I failed love, Do I care about love or I care about me. Do I value love or I don’t even understand what it is. What is an embodiment of love to you? Does it actually exist past the so much glorified “sex”?
Do you divorce your head to merit "falling in love"?
Is love coupled with a morsel of wisdom fatal, contagious or unfashionable?
Can love flourish without sacrifice and wisdom?
E&OE
