What is love? What does it mean to you? When we’re young, love means safety and security. It means comfort and it means fun. As we grow, love takes on an almost inadequate description of our feelings. It is used in such a carefree manner in the first stages of a relationship.
It is during this period that our definitions of love take on an almost unrealistic meaning. Likely because we say it often in the earliest stages of a relationship that may see its lifetime peak and end in under 2 weeks. As we become young adults, our skewed versions of love are colored by our personal experiences.
If you were likely to say I love you very quickly, then you have a fluid definition. If I love you is something you’ve never said, your definition may be far more extreme and harder to identify. So what is love? How do we define it?
One of the best descriptions for love I have ever read or seen is that love wants to give. Love wants to give so much it can hardly wait. It wants to give smiles, it wants to give laughter and it wants to give excitement. It’s similar to the thrill you get when you watch someone open a present you have given them. Their pleasure flushes you with pleasure.
When someone wants to know whether they are in love with someone or in lust with them – you can find the difference in the idea that lust can’t wait to receive. Lust wants presents. It wants gifts. It wants attention.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being in love and in lust with someone. After all, love and lust can go hand in hand and often do in marriages. However, love – at least as I have found it to be in my definition wants to give. It wants to please. It wants to help. It wants to experience the feeling of helping the loved one to smile and to be happy.
Love puts self second. That’s real definition of love.