I agree with it. I think it really is a choice to love someone. Whether that's a SO or a friend or whomever, it's a choice. I don't think it starts as a choice...in that in order to continue to choose love I think you have to have had it in the first place - it has to have a kick start, as it were. Ergo, there will be people that you will cross paths with and not love.
But there will be a few, a very few, that you will love. Maybe fall in love with, that's semantics...but love. Truly love. And I think once you are at that starting point, love is a changeable, thing. I believe Love is steadfast (as it is described in the Bible). That doesn't mean love doesn't change, it doesn't mean that it will always feel the same (in fact probably you won't feel it at all sometimes...), it just means that it's there, standing steady, because of the commitment of the person/people to hold it in place. REAL Love doesn't happen of it's own accord in my view. It IS deliberate. A choice every day to love someone even if you don't like them very much that day. Or those pressures like those listed above seem to be far more real feelings than the ones of love. Or the impulse to jump ship is more overwhelming (and God knows we've all felt that...).
I've had a tough couple of weeks. Actually, a tough couple of months. There's been a few times when I didn't feel love, like the movies might like us to think we should. I chose to love anyway, steadfastly and deliberately. Unfortunately for me, it didn't work out. And I have, I must confess, in the past few days shown glimpses my own filthy side as I struggle to come to terms with it. I have not been very deliberate in my attempts to to be consistently patient and kind. (although God knows I've tried, I really have). I've certainly let my own ego get in the way. (Then again, who wouldn't?...) To learn than for some, feelings win over form is a painful discovery. I have had every emotion - sadness, shock,disbelief, amazement, grief, insight, disappointment, anger, self righteous fury , worry, shame, self doubt, humiliation. And for better or worse, I still haven't yet been able to ''choose'' to turn OFF love (can you even do that?).
My trust in what love is, and should be, and could be, has been seriously rocked. Not for the first time in my life I find myself wondering if this ''love'' thing really is just a bunch of emotions that not only cant be trusted, but are somehow both ephemeral and finite. Maybe the sages are wrong, and in fact love is NOT a choice. Maybe it isn't solid. Maybe it isn't something that lasts at all. Maybe it really is just about feelings and all this ''love is patient/love is a choice type thinking is just a way of getting us to live on logic not feelings. Many is the day I have challenged my own feelings of love toward another. In 25 years of adult relationships I think it would be impossible not to!
So...Maybe it's something you just get carried away on a wave of - and as so, can just as easily be washed into a new wave? Even if you've been bobbing around in it for a while, with a life jacket on, it would seem there's no guarantee that you're going to stay afloat. That's a scary thought for me - how can I trust that love really can be steadfast if that is the truth?
I can question all I like. But I don't believe a word of it. I think Love...to love... IS a choice. It has to be. Or the whole world would be rushing around from ''love'' to ''love''. Sure, to love every day can require pain. Commitment. Sacrifice. Letting go of ego. But it's also full of the potential for true joy, security and safety in being able to be 'us'. And I know this because we all do it - we do it with our children, friends, family. We choose to love these people.
It seems that the only time we forget this is when it comes to 'romantic' love. Why is that different? I welcome your thoughts.
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