How often I have been stepped upon and how often I have seen others getting their shoes dirtied by fellow passengers, as they jostle for that extra inch of “leg” room. And, amazingly, how often I have seen passengers making light of others’ dreadful footwork. That was 25 years ago - the passenger numbers have grown exponentially since, but one hears that people still bear with one another.
Let’s examine what I am trying to say:
How often we hear a bewildered spouse say, “How can I love him, when he has hurt me so much in the past?” A few months after a fantastic honeymoon, we have questions like: “What did I see in him? How could I have been this blind!” Or, “How can I love her when she does not even understand my needs?”
The answers are complex and mired in debates, but the solution lies in understanding what it truly means to love someone.
Our primary problem is that our love is instinct-based. No wonder we are not able to cover much distance in our relationships. Studies have revealed that the average “in-love” experience lasts about two years. When we fall in love, the person we fall in love with simply cannot make any mistakes. Sadly, for the unlucky, just a few months into marriage and that same love is “challenged” with each surfacing difference.
Psychologists have concluded that the need to feel love is a primary human emotional need. The moment our relationship goes through the usual tests, we begin to hold back.
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The same psychologists have concluded that falling in love is not real. This love is created by a “temporary collapse of ego boundaries,” driven by our primal physical desires. We may or may not agree with that conclusion, but those of us who have fallen in love will agree that the in-love feeling catapults us into an emotional orbit unlike anything else we have ever experienced. It tends to make invisible our differences, our very rational thinking. The ecstasy experienced when we are in love is a feeling no poet has been able to fully justify with his quill. We find ourselves doing and saying things that we would never have said or done in our sober state. The moment this emotional high subsides, we often wonder why we did or said those things. Some even ask, “Why did we get married? We don’t agree on anything!” Suddenly those invisible ego walls become visible and at times impregnable. And then we “fall” out of love.
So many negative situations just lie in wait for us to explode in anger. As the world gets smaller and more crowded, the need to adjust has taken greater dimensions. Today, more than ever, we literally rub shoulders with people of the same flesh and blood – in the trains, buses and even places of worship. The same is also true in more and more homes. How often we forget that the person we are rubbing shoulders with has the same needs as ours. It is precisely at this juncture, that our loving the other person becomes a matter of choice. No matter how many times we are pushed, our shoes dirtied in the trains, we still choose to accommodate our fellow passenger and use the same means of travel for years on end. Sadly, when it comes to our own family members, and people we know, our egos erect walls between us.
Jesus saw the need for us to make love a choice, and when delivering the very famous Sermon on the Mount, He said: “…but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father Who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
If love was not a matter of choice, the entire sermon would have been punctuated with riders and conditions.
In His divinity, Jesus foresaw the horrifying and hideous suffering that was in store for Him. Even before the actual events that led to His crucifixion began, the Bible tells us that Jesus sweated blood in the garden of Gethsemane for so much was His agony, having lived like a man. He, however, knew - just as He often preached - that there was a choice to be made. And, in His perfectly human form, He made that choice. He chose to love us even though it called for the ultimate sacrifice. And, as we all know, He put it into action.
Young boys and girls are willing to “die” for each other when they are experiencing the “in-love” high. The moment the in-love experience goes out of the window, in so many cases, they would rather see the other person dead. For some unlucky couples, the bliss of being “in love” hardly lasts a few days after marriage.
We have a problem with an ailing relative at home, but we have no problem if we get shoved and pushed in buses and trains by strangers.
The good news is that we can pursue “real love”. The kind of love that is emotional in nature, but not obsessional. The kind of love that is lived out of choice, than merely by instinct.
Ultimately, our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love, but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not just instinct. We need to be loved by someone who chooses to love us, who sees in us something worth loving. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. And just as we need it, the other person also needs it.
In fact, as a counsellor once rightly said, true love cannot begin until the “in love” experience has run its course.
We can choose to extend this true love not only to our spouses, but to other members in the family, in the community, and in the work place – to all the people that we are “married” to.
I remember an incident in the life of Prophet Mohammed that a friend once narrated to me. Each time the Prophet would pass through a particular area, an old lady living in that neighbourbood would throw litter at him. One day, when the Prophet was passing through there was no litter thrown on him. While returning he asked his followers to enquire about the woman. They came back saying that she was very ill. It would have been very ordinary to feel “spared” that day, but the Prophet visited her and exchanged greetings, concerned about her well being. The woman was overwhelmed with the Prophet’s gesture and was never the same again.
In my seven years of counselling, I have often come across people struggling to understand one fundamental, God’s universal law: give and you shall receive. Sadly, today’s crises is precipitated by an “inverse” understanding of that law and the modern thinking can be summed up in the question we often hear: “Why should I do anything for him/her, if he/she does not do anything for me?” God’s laws were not made for any particular generation and our attempt to ignore Him because we feel that we are modern enough to know what is good for us, will always be futile and even catastrophic for our personal well being. For those who are struggling to come to terms with their relationships, the give-first law needs to be seriously re-examined, understood and applied.
Is it easy to bring back those beautiful moments that we had when we were in love? The answer lies in making love a matter of choice, not instinct; in making it an act of the will.
Fortunately, in normal day to day situations, it does not even cost us our lives.
About the Author:
Oliver Sutari, currently living in Manipal, provides free spiritual counselling service and, on invitation, visits schools and colleges to motivate students and teachers alike. He has already worked with scores of alcoholics, couples with marital problems, and individuals who saw no purpose in living. He has visited several countries and, is a self-taught photographer, who uses his knowledge, experience and skills to teach the under-privileged.
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