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Love is in the IL Air!! The panacea to everything...

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by BharadwajThiru, Aug 18, 2013.

  1. BharadwajThiru

    BharadwajThiru Silver IL'ite

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    With the recent couple of posts on LOVE, I thought it is a great time to post the narration I had posted in a different blog site. Here I reproduce it with some edits.


    Love - the panacea to everything!

    There is nothing more pure than love. Love is the most important ingredient to any relationship and can overcome absence of any other ingredient. In love there is no bad consequence. You can love anybody even without trusting him or her! You can love someone without ever respecting him or her!

    What is love?
    Love, to me, is a feeling you have for others that makes you want to be around a person, wish the best for them always, expect nothing in return and want to care for them whether they are within sight or out of sight.

    Do you have to be loved in order to be able to love?
    I think you have to have experienced pure love before you can love others. God made children cute because it is a motivator for love. You want to cuddle a child, want to hug them and see a smile on their faces. I am sure a lot of parents still can remember the first smile of their children. Love usually starts at home. It grows there and expands outwards.

    There are various ways to demonstrate love for a person.

    Caring
    The first demonstration of love is caring. Taking care of the child when he needs to eat, sleep or be cleaned. The very basic necessities of life, provides us with an opportunity to express our love. If these are taken care of the mind recognizes this and understands this as love subconsciously. We may not have a name for it, but the feeling we experience is love.

    Spending time
    Love involves sacrifice; it requires one to forgive and forget; it involves being present. Getting up at 3am to plan a picnic will not get you any closer if you do not have the energy to throw a ball, Frisbee or play tag when your child wants to.

    Providing the freedom of choice in a safe environment
    As the child begins to grow, they begin to experiment. The experiment may lead them to do activities that may be unsafe or inappropriate based on the culture, family values and personal choices. This is when the child begins to her the word "no" more frequently and learns to understand and define boundaries. There are many ways to define these boundaries. Some of them are physical boundaries. For example, a gate at the top of the stair case, a play pen or sometimes even a leash! Then, there is the reward and the punishment or consequence. There are natural consequences, such as pain inflicted by poking something sharp, or pain inflicted by falling down the stairs, or the pain when touching a hot surface. Some of these natural consequences can be used effectively in a safe environment to define the boundaries. I prefer this method because it is truly hard for a child to understand what pain means without experiencing a little of it. By reinforcing with words the consequence of such actions, we build trust with the child. This is extremely important, for there will come a time when you want your child to listen to you rather than experience something that is not good for him or her.
    Rewards can be used for desired behavior. However, you need to be really careful. Rewards should generally be avoided for establishing core acceptable behavior. For example, you should not reward a child for not being a bully; however it may be ok to reward a child for using the words please and thank you. At work, we don't get rewarded for performing our primary job function, but only when we go above and beyond what is expected of us.

    Appreciating things
    While it is important to develop love for people, it is important also to develop love for things. By love for things, I don't mean the desire to have all the things we want or like, but the appreciation for the things we have. Love for food, to me, implies eating in modest amounts and not wasting. It is not about craving for certain kinds of food. It is important to establish this early on, or it may lead to greed and other undesired "love" for objects.

    Appreciating things as they are/Being able to forgive
    As we grow, we are bound to make mistakes. It is important to recognize, expect and accept the mistakes and learn to forgive and forget. Constantly being reminded of that one mistake we made that one time, is not going to help build love. There will be several coaching moments we will get, that should be maximized to demonstrate love while showing we care. These can be used instead of long lectures.

    When a child falls sick or is hurt, it is not fun. It hurts us to see them hurt and leads to frustrations at our inability to relieve the pain. However, I do believe that God is really providing an opportunity to show, how much we love them. If we can take the day off from work and spend time with them, love grows deep.

    Giving time to the child is the biggest return on investment for developing and demonstrating love.

    Non Judgmental
    Love is being able to laugh when the child does something naughty that is of small consequence. It is important to remember that anything a child does is not going to develop into a habit or a mannerism. Perhaps I've already written about the following sentence in one of my other blogs. It is however worth repeating. Sometimes a child does something that they know is wrong, yet they do it to save face. It could be a small lie that is said merely to save face and not with the intent to cheat. It is critical that we recognize these and don't make a big deal of it as long as both of us understand for what it is. When in doubt, I like to give my child the benefit of doubt. Repeated lying of course should not be left unaddressed.
    When you love someone, you are non judgmental. You do not take the moral high ground and chastise them when they do make mistakes. You treat it as aberrational behavior, yet a willing to have a serious conversation with them when they do go astray to help and guide them.

    Giving in
    Love is being able to lose a battle. Having the last word in an argument does not always mean we've won the battle. On the contrary, staying quiet at the right time can lead one to win the argument. Love and respect should never be compromised to win an argument. The other day I had a conversation with my son about dressing appropriately for the fall season. The changing season often leads to sickness. This morning when we were heading out, my son did not have a jacket on although it was 48F! When brought up the subject, he was upset and said "what is it with you parents". I immediately shut up and apologized. This prevented an argument and am certain made him think, for he got his jacket and put it on. If I had argued, it would have been a bad way to start the day.

    Sacrifice
    Love is sacrifice. By sacrifice I don't mean giving up something we really love. It is about accepting, that, in a relationship we won't always get what we want; it is about compromise. As kids we want our friends to play with us and we want them to play the game we want! Sometimes we have to compromise and, in return for their company are willing to play a game of their choice. The closer the relationship, the harder it is to compromise. For example it is harder to agree with your spouse, parent or sibling but easy to make the same sacrifice for a friend. How ironic!

    No expectations in Love
    Disappointments are caused when expectations are not met. In pure love there are no expectations. It is accepting the people as they are. This is best explained in the relationship between parent and child. Even when the child goes down a wrong path the parent does not approve of, the parent still love their child and will do whatever to defend and protect their children. The reverse may not be true. A great example is the mother of the 9/11 planner who condemned her child's action but appealed to the world to forgive her son and forgive her for creating perhaps the incorrect environment for her child to be raised in. A parent will take the blame for their child's mistake and be willing to sacrifice their honor or even life to save their child.

    Listening/Sharing
    Human nature is to seek acknowledgment and recognition for their accomplishment. This sometimes leads to sharing our accomplishments rather than listening and acknowledging others when they share theirs. How often have we shared our own story when someone else shares something with us. It may be some good fortune they met with and we try to outdo their story. It could also be a loss someone is sharing and we try to share a bigger story! In love, we need to listen; listen without interrupting and sharing our own stories. When you know someone truly loves you, you feel comfortable and seek them out when you have something to share knowing (not expecting) them to listen.

    Freedom of choice
    The ultimate expression of love is providing the freedom of choice. The best example of this is God's gift to mankind; the freedom of free will. As we discover more and more about the human mind and other God's creations, it is apparent that he gave us the ability of discovery. There will perhaps come a day when mankind will be able to create another human with nothing! God created consequences and wrote an elaborate program that defines consequences for every action we take. When we come across unfavorable circumstances, we tend to blame God for showing no mercy on us. Yet, on deeper thought, we would find that it is merely a consequence of some action we took or did not take in the past. Hindsight provides us with a 20-20 vision and is a clear indicator that any situation is really a consequence of some prior action good or bad.
    In love, we need to explain the consequence of actions to our near and dear ones to the best of our ability and let them make their own choices. Directive coaching should be reserved for emergencies and protection only.

    When we truly have love for someone, and it is mutual, it comes with a deep understanding of each other. Siblings may live tens of thousands of miles away, yet there is a strong bond of love. Siblings and parents may not need to talk to each other as much, but they often understand and rationalize the lack of demonstrated love. In these cases love may be invisible to a third party, but the siblings may be praying for the other's welfare on a daily basis! This love is sometimes hard to understand and is often misinterpreted by others as a lack of relationship.

    Just as charity begins at home, love too begins at home. Without loving ourselves we can't begin to love others. Loving oneself, means, being able to accept who we are. Just as obsessing is bad for anything, so also it is true of love. We should love ourselves enough to take good care of our body and mind. This means eating modestly, exercising to stay fit, developing self-restraint in our actions and thoughts. This will create self-esteem that is essential to loving others. The first people we meet are our parents, siblings and grandparents. Developing love for them is our next step to having a good relationship and being able to share our love. Although love itself is the same for all people, the way we express it differs based on the relationship. The beauty of love is that we could love everybody equally and we never run short of it!

    As we grow, we meet and begin to love our relatives, friends and teachers. All this is essential to grow love. We also begin to "love" our things. It is important to encourage this while young. Only then will we begin to love other things such as nature and public property.

    We then enter the stage of marriage, where a new type of love begins. This is the love for your spouse and by far the most unique form of love. It is unique, because we chose the person we marry out of free will and share a relationship that we do not with any other person. This is the one person we are willing to be most vulnerable with. Hence, this is the closest form of love. This relationship is also the foundation we establish for love in future generations. This love in fact, defines how our children and their children are going to experience love. Therefore this is the most important of all love!
    The only relationship that has the potential to come close to or exceed the spousal love is our love for our children. This is because they are really part of us, part of our blood that has been created from the purest form of love. Because it was created out of love, it should not in any way pose a threat to the spousal love. However, it is perhaps easier to demonstrate this love. Although love for children from both parents is unquestionable, and equal, the demonstration of this love is different between the spouses. Children may misinterpret this easily and they need to be taught the differences between love and the demonstration of it. I always tell my children to look beyond words and actions and at intent. In true love, intent is always good. Once we are able to recognize intent we soon realize that there is true love in a parents love for their children.

    You can attain more with love than by demonstrating a sense of duty. As a parent we have our responsibility to our children. One should not assume that performing these to perfection will create a tight bond with our children. Love is a more powerful motivator.

    No obligation
    In love, there is no sense of obligation. We should be able to receive graciously as we are willing to give. Just giving leads to a sense of obligation and masks true love.

    Being vulnerable
    In love, we need to be vulnerable. By this, I mean, our ability to admit we were wrong; ask for forgiveness and not lose our self esteem when we do ask for forgiveness.

    I am still discovering love and this will be an eternal blog. A lot has been written about leading by love, including leadership at the work place. Leading by love has no bad consequences; on the contrary this is the only path to success!
     
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  2. unknowns

    unknowns Bronze IL'ite

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    Beautiful post ..

    Nice keep writing.
     
  3. iyerviji

    iyerviji Finest Post Winner

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    Bharadwaj dear you have summed up everything about love in your snippet. In another two hours I will be completing 70 years and in these 70 years I have experienced all kinds of love you mentioned. But of late I am blessed to be loved by everyone in IL and I cant tell you in words how much I enjoy being here and loved by everyone. Here also I have got all kinds of love. At this age what else do I need.

    But I should get God's love and blessings too. I think God also likes me thats why he has flooded me with everyone's love

    I will come back later with quotes,
     
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  4. BharadwajThiru

    BharadwajThiru Silver IL'ite

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    THank you for your comments and wish you a WONDERFUL Birthday! May God's choicest blessings pour on you on this great day!
     
  5. BharadwajThiru

    BharadwajThiru Silver IL'ite

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    Thank you. With the love I have received from this forum in such a short time, it keeps my motivation going.
     
  6. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear BharadwajThiru,

    Finally I managed to read your entire blog which had a lot of information in it. I am so glad you defined love with the spouse as very special. I feel in spousal relationship, there is a lot of sharing, caring, understanding and acceptance among the equals between a man and woman who are from two different value system. In case of siblings, it is from the same value system. Every time, when I see couples leading a happy life for 30, 40, 50 years together, I admire their togetherness. But regarding love for children, it does not have to be equal or better because the children are made out of their own blood. There are many parents who love their children even though they are adopted. In my mind, the children deserve to be loved as they demonstrate unconditional love to anyone who is near and dear to them.

    Viswa
     
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  7. BharadwajThiru

    BharadwajThiru Silver IL'ite

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    Well said Viswa sir! Can't agree with you more.
     

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