Finding your way to real love

"Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done."
- Vincent Van Gogh

I am convinced that a majority of people in our modern society have no comprehension of the kind of love that the artist refers to.

They have not experienced that kind of love from others, especially as children, so they have no based on which to give it to others as adults.

To them, love is what I used to understand, as a teenager, was "like." Or the best possible business arrangment that is available at the time.

I understand how heretical that may seem to many people. But those people may be among the ones who don't understand what real love is.

You can't fall out of love. That's one characteristic.

If your kind of love is something you could change your mind about, then it's not what those who have experienced real love call real love.

It would be like getting to heaven, then changing your mind because you'd have to play the same 18 hole golf course every day. Or choosing to leave because you don't like the decor.

It can't happen that way. Real love is not something we can do anything about. It fits, wear it.

Real love is not sexual or romantic in the sense that we might see on television or in a movie. Sex is hormonal. Romance appeals to the same part of the brain that addictions so, the part that emits dopamine, the feel-good natural high.

Real love has not yet been tracked in the brain because medical science has not yet developed equipment that sophisticated.

Real love can be for God, for a mate, for a friend, for a skid row "loser," for a death row inmate, for a criminal, for a partner of the same sex. For yourself, for sure. For real love to flourish, we must love ourselves first. Truly and honestly.

Those who have real love can't explain it to others who don't. Those who don't have real love can't find descriptive words because they don't know what they would be describing. That's why a dictionary has so many ways to explain love.

But a dictionary doesn't explain real love. There aren't words available that everyone would understand.

With real love, we would walk into hell without fear to save the one we love. Why without fear? Because we feel it so strongly that it transcends our mortal existence.

Many will say "Where is the proof?" They don't understand. They ask the same question of those who believe whole-heartedly in God.

You can't buy real love. You can't sweet talk you way into it. Perfume or fancy dress won't do it.

Real love starts within you and grows. Until it overcomes you.

Or it's stillborn. Though some manage to nurture love to live as adults. If they learn how. The seed of love doesn't die until we do.

I have no secret to convey to you about how to nurture the love within you. Just one suggestion.

Ask yourself what God would want you to do with your life. Not your parents, your friends, your clergyman/woman or a TV commercial.

God.

If you can't deal with that question, then you won't be able to nurture the real love within you.

If that question is too much for you to cope with, then happy motoring. Happy like. Find yourself a good deal.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to guide everyone to understand the unexplainable.
Learn more at http://billallin.com