Is there really more to life than love? Most people either know what it feels like to be in love or once were in love. You feel light, like you can walk on air or water; and like nothing in the world can stop your awe-inspiring, romantically fueled bond. Thereafter you start feeling as though you want to share your “couple experiences” with the entire world.
And you may even adopt the “haters gonna hate” ideology because it makes you feel better thinking that others are just jealous of your Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin love. Experiencing the typical butterflies in your stomach is a good way to sum up the whole affair. But what exactly happens when this feeling fades?
Life happens, love fades
One fact a lot of people refuse to accept is that with time eventually love will fade. They can boast all they want that they have been together or married for X number of years and still going strong, but this still does not change the inevitable. It is not that people cannot stay in love for a very long time with sufficient effort; it’s just that no matter how hard a couple tries they will never always be able to feel the exact way they felt when they first fell in love. And this is perfectly normal. Many simply refer to this as the end of the honeymoon phase.
It is really not that startling when you think about it. Just compare anything you had for the first time and how you felt then and now and it’s usually easy to see the difference: Your first job, first car, first kiss, first time you made love. Chances are all of these at first were either met with extreme fear, anxiety or excitement. You may have even experienced all of those emotions at once.
Those who are more experienced know that give anyone enough time with something new and sooner or later they will either get tired of it or desire something else. As the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. A relationship is no different. And before long, “I really like the color of your eyes” can turn into “do you really have to eat with your eyes open?”
Why there’s more to life than love
When the world “love” is heard many people immediately conceptualize that it’s related to being in a relationship. It’s as though other types of love, like loving a child, dog, friend, foe or God is seen as secondary. But why does love so often correlate with affection towards a living being instead of towards an inanimate object? The lazy answer is because people need people.
The more complicated truth is that people generally feel more valuable and believe that life is more meaningful when they are connected to something. However, to be in love you have to be connected but you don’t need to be in love to be connected. Once you understand this you will understand why there’s more to life than love.
Stronger “feelings” than love
Consider if you lost all your money, faith, health, courage and strength, what exactly would you have to live for? Love? Now if you lost love and retained everything else, what would you do then? Love is good, love is powerful; but there are many aspects to love.
Love in the “feelings stage” cannot conquer all and on its own it certainly cannot sustain a wholesome life long-term. But love undertaken as a vow is different. It sticks around, regardless if others do, and eventually transforms into something much more substantial. This is a more practical kind of love that allows you live while loving even a stranger as much as you love yourself.
And life can become even more spectacular if you happen to be one of the very few who learn how to love things like compassion, morals and values more than the “feelings of love” like almost everyone else.
Yes (again), there’s more to life than love … but only if you focus less on falling in love and instead on loving someone (or something) worthwhile more than you love yourself.
