3 Kinds of Love Love. It’s a loaded four-letter word. Just as a flower needs water to grow, every person needs to be loved in order to feel nourished. Loving another as you love yourself is “a cardinal principle” in almost any philosophical and religious teaching. So, love is crucial. But what is love, really? Does love mean accepting others just as they are? Here’s the problem. On the one hand, if I do not accept another as he is, doesn’t it mean I don’t really love him? I love only what I wish to make of him. On the other hand, to love someone also means that I care for him and desire the best for him. And since very, very few people are the best that they can be, doesn’t caring for someone mean not accepting him as he is, but rather believing in his potential to be better, and doing everything I can to reveal that potential? I think there are (at least) three kinds of love. I like to call them Blind Love, Strategic Love and Intrinsic Love. Let’s start with Blind Love. It can be compared to the kind of love a parent feels for a newborn. From that first embrace, the parent can’t see any imperfection. The child is the epitome of all that is good and right. We often experience Blind Love during the dating process. At one point, when we “fall in love” with our potential spouse-to-be / significant other, we may be blind to any faults and notice only his or her good qualities. Any hint of negativity is immediately excused, attributed to other circumstances. In fact, often the characteristics that irritate spouses most about each other are those very qualities they initially found so alluring and attractive. So, for example, a wife who complains that her husband is “irresponsible” or “reckless” may have been attracted to those very same qualities, which she initially viewed as “adventurous” or “fun-loving.” Or, for example, a spouse’s “stinginess” may have been interpreted during the dating stage as a positive sense of “responsibility.“ So, Blind Love means we love someone to such an extent that we do not even see his faults. Funny, there are those that say that when a baby is born the parent is blind to any wrong, but as the child enters his or her teens the parent is blind to any good. Kind of like marriage . . . Which brings us to the second kind of love. I call this love Strategic Love. It means that we see the negative qualities that the individual has, but we focus instead on the positive in order to effect change. We realize that focusing on the negative will only make things worse, so instead we make a concerted effort to look for and concentrate only on the positive, with the ultimate goal of bringing out the qualities we desire. Books on behavioral psychology use this tactic all the time. They tell us to “catch” our children—especially the ones with challenging or irritating behavior—doing something positive. Catch them doing the act and then praise them. By showering them with positive praise, we reinforce their good behavior. Mothers of teenagers are renowned for practicing Strategic Love. So are smart wives. But it is also a limited love. If you think about it, in essence, you are really loving the person not for who he is but for whom you are hoping you can make him become. So a spouse, significant other or child might feel loved conditionally—loved only if and when he is doing what you want him to do. The third kind of love I call Intrinsic Love. I think this love for every person, no matter who he is or where he is at, is real and palpable. It is not a means to a personal goal, but rather totally and completely unconditional. To have this love means that one believes and recognizes the infinite greatness of every individual, and genuinely wants the person to be even more. Not because we aren’t good enough, but because if we have the power to do this infinitely amazing and important thing, how can we not do more? And this, I believe, is the healthiest—and most empowering—approach that we can foster towards others, as well as towards ourselves. When we hear the “golden rule,” which says that we need to love another as we love ourselves, we understand that we need to love others. But we obviously can’t “love someone as we love ourselves” if we don’t feel any love towards ourselves. Often, we bombard ourselves with critical self-talk. We tell ourselves that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not skinny enough, not ambitious enough, not efficient enough, and on and on. As a result, many of us have internalized voices that constantly criticize us with their messages about how we just don’t measure up. These critiquing voices can be so self-defeating, almost convincing us that we aren’t really worthy of love. These voices also paralyze us, preventing us from even trying to reach higher. On the other hand, if we don’t see our faults or our challenges, if we do not acknowledge the areas in which we really do not measure up, how in the world will we strive to reach higher and become more? This is where I think the message of Intrinsic Love is key. Intrinsic Love is not a blind love, like Blind Love, where we do not see the faults or negativity within ourselves or others. We are very well aware of how we can and should improve. And it is also not a negative message of “you’re not good enough as you are,” like Strategic Love. It is not even “be more” or “try harder.” It is not a love for the improved version of ourselves. Intrinsic Love is an unconditional love for who we are. But precisely because each of us has this infinite power and ability, we can demand of ourselves to be even better. Not because we are lacking, but because of the infinite goodness that we are. So, when we wake up in the morning, we need to see a new view of ourselves. Yesterday was good—great even—but today can be even better. Precisely because of how good—and beloved—we are by others and, most importantly, by our Higher Power. Essay Inspired by Chana Weisberg, readings in the Books and the writings / teachings of Tzadiks through the ages.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:16:52 +0000