What is Love – True Meaning of Love

Love. When you read or hear this word, what comes to mind? And most importantly how would you express this emotion of love? Is it by having dinner under a starlit sky or by serenading your loved one with a song or is it by buying something exquisite and expensive?

Aha! And before you answer, do remember not to confuse infatuation with love. Let me try to decipher “what is love” with an incident I experienced recently.

Love musings

Visualize this true incident to understand what is love.

Recently a visit to a friend’s place prompted me to think about the emotion of love. If you are wondering, what the trigger was, it was the husband’s remark while seeing me off at the door.

He said, “I realized today, the effort and the care my wife takes to keep the home and hearth happy and healthy”.

To give you a clearer picture as to why the husband was uncharacteristically more communicative than usual, is that, his wife had suddenly suffered a cerebral stroke a few weeks back. She was finally back home from the hospital after a long and painful stint.

It was during this time, the husband handled the entire home front single-handily, which also included keeping the spirits of his two young children pepped up, since they were undergoing their assessments for their term ends at school.

While the words said by my friend’s husband may not sound very extraordinary to an average listener, they took me by surprise, because the husband is a reticent and private man and not very effusive.

The words, the emotion in his voice, conveyed the love and care he felt for his wife, much more than perhaps the oft used words of endearment.

Love – Just a four letter word?

It is much more than just a word, though in today’s times it’s so loosely used for every possible situation. In the consumerist society we live in, gifting—especially expensive gifts—are popular expressions of love.

But love is much more than expensive gifts. So what is love? Personally, I would say it is a commitment to be together through the different hues of the life. Now, this may sound like a long drawn-out affair and almost binding in nature, but then that is what love is.

To explain what is love George Nathan has rightly said, Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.

It is difficult to define love, due to the various cultural connotations. More often than not, the term love refers to the feeling of warm personal attachment.

Love is faith

Love being equated with commitment might sound like an anathema. In our current fast-paced society, if a relationship does not work, most people are advised to abandon ship and look for greener pastures. In such a situation, equating love with dependability is akin to hara-kiri.

Not that one should stay in an abusive relationship or in a relationship which does not bring happiness at all.

But having said that, it is a matter of commitment. Love sometimes means we just let things go that frustrate us, and then on top of that we sometimes still have to take the extra effort to nurture and re-nourish the relationship.

Read more at – Tips to keep your relationship alive

Conclusion – What is love

Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet says it best when it comes to explaining “what is love.”

You know what love is? It is all kindness, generosity. Disharmony prevails when you confuse lust with love, while the distance between the two is endless.