Seems like there’s no gray areas in love. You either love hard or you don’t love at all. Seems like common sense, so why aren’t we following it?
I’ve been reading a very insightful book by Nithyananda called Guaranteed Solutions. In portions of the book, Swamiji (the name which Nithyananda often goes by) discusses love. Love is a very confusing subject, whether it is parent-child, platonic, or romantic. We think we know what it is and often end up back at square one just when we think we got it all figured out.
Apparently the reason why we are so confused about love is because we tend to view love as transactional. We do this consciously and unconsciously.
We do things in the name of love and expect something back in return. A parent provides for a child in the name of love in hopes that the child will take care of them when they grow old. You may help another friend out simply because you’re thinking that your friend will be indebted to you later. A person in love will remain faithful in hopes that their lover will act in kind.
Love in our society has really become a quid pro quo business arrangement.
Maybe that’s why we’re so fickle when it comes to love. That’s why parents may be quick to disown their children. Why the divorce rate stands at a staggering 50%+. Why we’ve become serial daters and serial monogamists. If someone doesn’t meet our terms, move over buddy. When are we going to realize that we’re constantly setting ourselves up for disappointment?
Despite what a Master might say, is it really even possible for us commoners to love in totality? Are we doomed to half-assing it and using manipulation?
I think it’s possible to love in totality. Even with human nature being what it is. Even with human nature’s stong attachment to its ego. Because total love is a process. I wrote in my last post that perfection is possible because of its dynamic nature. We aren’t perfect when we reach a specified end point. We’re perfect just for having the courage to walk down the road.
I would say the same thing about love. The Masters themselves have a hard time defining total love. Why? Because love, like many things in life, is dynamic and internal.
Many of us start out seeing love as transactional because that’s what we’re taught. This form of love is of the autopilot, bare-bones variety. But even if many of us don’t exercise it, we all have the capability to grow past that. I would say that for most people transactional love is the first step of a lifelong process. There’s simply no end point since we can always improve the way we love others.
But how can most of us ever begin to understand love if we don’t understand the ways it’s misunderstood? And what better way to understand these ways than to live it?
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Related posts:
- All is full of love
- Thoughts on how to start loving freely and without expecations
- Perfection does exist, but not the way we think of it
- Get rid of dead weight: Channel frustration into creative ideas into action
- Obligatory post in which I babble about authenticity, imperfection, negativity, and then somehow throw Thanksgiving into the mix.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Real Love is not transacional, but rather the opposite. Even though many dont see it as such, one true indicator that you love someone (in any type of love there is out there) is that you dont need that person to love you back in order to love them.
If your parent truely loves you, they will no matter what you do. Even if you all are not speaking and they are completly disappointed in you, or vice versa, your parent will still love you.
You can love someone who is with someone else and be ok. Probably not 100% happy but you can find satisfaction none the less.
Relationships are transactional. Any relationship you have must have an exchange. The intensity, frequency, and amount of what is being exchanged determined how good or close a relationship is. You can love a friend, not talk to them for years, but re-connect later…while you were disconnected, you still loved your friend, its just that the relationship was extremely week becuase there were no transactions taking place to keep it alive and strong. So lets not mix the requirments to love someone with the requirements to be in a relationship (or date) someone because there is a big difference.
So back to the impossible mission of defining love….
The nature of love…the effort that you put into something that is not required.
Same pattern in spiritual relationships….bible says God loves all even if you dont believe in his exsistence, and it also says to love your enemy….
This pattern of love without any expectation is hard for some to swallow because people dont like being in the position that they can get hurt. If you love someone, you open the door for their actions to have an effect on you, both positive and negative. You also run the risk of being taken advantage of as well.
Most people like to take the safe route and treat love like a buisness transaction….you do something for me, I do something for you…were both happy, case closed. If you dont meet the standards, hit the road jack (and dont you come back no more no more no more no more!)
But this method is still vulnerable to pain because most often times, love can not be contained nor controlled…so in many relationships, people dont intend to REALLY love a person but they end up falling for them hard….when the feelings aren't mutual…when one person is on their buisness trasaction and the other is turel in love, then things get ugly.
And thats not the only way that the buisness plan can get screwed up. some buisnss deals are uneve…and when you have a dominant buisness partner, the smaller client is a bigger target in getting taken advantage of, manipulated, or hurt.
And on a different note, I would argue that love is internal and external. Its too big to keep inside and not express and its something that each person understands differently and feels differently. Altought there are some universal similarities that we all share when we go down the love road, we all can feel it slightly different…
Another common hickup in the love buisness transaction is that some people mistake a person's ability to fill in their gaps to be indicators of love and acceptance. But this is not the case…just cuase someone has things you dont and vice versa doesn't mean you two are a good fit, it just means that you would have a complimentary buisness transaction where both of you could be satisfied.
So I salute those who take risk….no matter how safe and secure it may appear, and buisness transaction has a level of risk….and true love (which I think is the strongest state of mind a person can be in) is risky as well.
Wow, long comment there.
Hmm, well I can't argue that real love is not transactional. The point I was trying to drive home in my post is that most people don't start out understanding real love. Most people start out with a rudimentary form of love (e.g. transactional love). “I love my mom because she feeds me… I love my girlfriend/boyfriend because s/he does X.” In other words we usually start out needing a reason to love. Some people eventually graduate to real love: love without reason. Unfortunately many of us never graduate.
I feel that being in the transactional love state is not a crime, especially if you learn and grow from it. In that case, transactional love is a step towards something better. Like the way we look at our past mistakes to do better in the future and understand the world better. It makes sense, because isn't love dynamic?
Transacional love can be a step to getting to the real thing, but I think “transactional love” and “relationship” are one in the same…you can start a relationship not loving someone…and if you two take care of each other long enough and good enough, you could graduate to the real thing….
The key is not to get the real thing mixed up with the inimation. IF you start a relationship with transactual love, one person could graduate and the other could stay behind. That could lead to a world of hurt for someone….. So I think it best to see transactional love and the fuel to keep a relationship close, but not a requirement of love, nor a pre-requisite to understand love….
And yea, I do big comments…you know me…..
Agreed, it's very difficult for both parties in a relationship to grow together in the same relationship. I'm learning though that even in that case, both people are capable of leaving the relationship with something worthwhile: an experience that leads them closer to understanding true love. Even the person who does stay behind initially.