Is love an emotion? Or is it too vast a word to describe or sum up. You hear people talk about love being unconditional and then there are others who talk of using a tough love. Some have a love that is described as toxic and is rejected by their suitors. However love is the one word that is used more than any other, but seems to be the least understood. The Bible tells us that God is love, but people use the word in ways that have nothing to do with Him. The most common connotation for love seems to actually be rooted in selfishness. A 'because of' love, if you will! People who love this way believe that describing and showing love in this way elevates the term (love), but in reality it degrades the term. Divorce exists as an alternative to supposed 'true love', but that makes no sense. Divorce exists primarily because love has been regulated to a mere emotion, and not used in its true form. Most cannot even recognize true love for lack of experience and familiarity. We only 'love' because of what someone can do for us and not for what we can do for, offer and/or sacrifice for them. We approach love purely from what we can get out of it, instead of what we can contribute/give. We take instead of give and we consume instead of produce. If love were merely an emotion, then how do you reconcile it ever being unconditional? Emotions change so frequently, based on things as simple and trivial as the weather and as complex, yet inevitable as tragedy and death. Our emotions feed directly off of our thoughts, so knowing that no one is ever 100 percent right or omniscient, we then have to conclude that our emotions that stem from our thoughts can be just as error-filled. We can feel one way one day and feel the opposite the next. Something or someone else could be affecting how we treat another. We allow our emotions in one situation to spill over into another and then, when we realize what we've been doing we often change back. Yet, with all that possibility for change in our emotions... why would we relegate love to such a fleeting and unstable subject. Love could never be unconditional as an emotion, because it does and can change so much. In order for love to ever be unconditional it would have to be something more stable and solid than emotions...

Love is not an emotion... but it can be felt! Love is a commitment evenly mixed with a choice. I know that definition is neither glamorous nor romantic, but it is the only way that it can be consistent enough to be unconditional. We ought to love, first, because we recognize and have received it, and then because we choose to. In choosing to love we then honor our choice by remaining committed despite the hard times, mistakes, failings and weaknesses. When we remain committed beyond everything, then and only then is our love unconditional. True love is nothing less. A mere emotion pales in comparison with 'true love'. We erroneously love people because of how they make us feel about ourself, instead of because we really love them and are ready to sacrifice or do for them expecting nothing in return. Most people actually lack such a real concept for love that they are not even aware that the word 'charity' is its synonym. When we give to charities we are participating in 'true love'... giving and expecting nothing in return. When we give because we recognize another person's need and not because we hope to get some service, gratitude and/or appreciation, then we have been truly charitable... loving! People's inability to recognize the synonymous nature between the words 'love' and 'charity' actually prove the point that love is woefully misunderstood today. Our national divorce rate is so high as a direct result. However don't get me wrong and assume that my mention of divorce in this context means that it is unwarranted in all cases, it just means that it is being misused, misapplied and abused in most cases.

God is love! Not us. His capacity for complete and unconditional love is unique to Him as an eternal characteristic. We only see it in glimpses and fading moments. When we love someone unconditionally we cannot always sustain that as a continual action, at least not if our only experience in love is self serving and manipulated to please ourselves (rather than others). We try to control our circumstances, our environment, and 'loved ones' in ways that are pleasing to us and then label it love. Yet, that is not love that is being selfish. We do for others because we want to be treated a certain way, looked at a certain way, we want something in return and/or we just want to be accepted. Sometimes we even give/sacrifice because we want the good feelings of pride and self-righteousness that usually comes after we've been charitable and sacrificed. Again, don't get the wrong idea and think that no one is capable of pure charity/love... it's just that there are so many who are confused about how love should work and/or look within a relationship, that they can't recognize it. They have never seen, nor experienced it. Some people merely want a better community to live in, and as innocuous of an idea as that seems, it could reveal their seemingly charitable behavior as self-preservation and survival. We may want our neighbors to be upstanding, law-abiding citizens because then we gain some false assurance that they (our neighbors) won't steal, kill or destroy us, our family and/or our possessions.

As humans we form addictions easy. The ones we give the most attention to are the ones that use drugs and alcohol. However we hardly ever hear about how some people are addicted to certain emotions or feelings. There are people who are addicted to what is known as NRE (New Relationship Energy). Those of us who have this kind of addiction are consumed by the feeling that comes with being in a new relationship and so they end romances that have grown wax and look for a new victim to feed their habit. They are also known as serial monogamists. Then there are those who are addicted to the positive, euphoric, drunk-like feelings that come when we experience the good side of love. Notice the distinction being made between love and the feeling love can cause. We so often confuse things and limit love to just those types of feeling and think that love does not exist if those feelings are not there. We become addicted to Love's symptom (its product) and pass over true Love's full experience. We settle for one of the fruits of love instead of the tree that is love. Love is not always pretty, clean and/or romantic! Sometimes it is downright ugly, dirty and/or mundane; however when love is truly recognized it is always beautiful. Loving a drug addict, forgiving a murderer or cheater, cleaning up your spouse's vomit (when they are sick)... do not seem very pretty, glamorous or romantic, but in most ways prove love exists more there than a candle-lit, rooftop dinner overlooking the entire city on a warm, mildly breezy, full moon-lit night.

Are you addicted to Love's symptom and mostly unfamiliar with love itself? Are you addicted to the feeling that love can sometimes give you instead of being committed to others by way of choice? Do you find yourself only looking to feel good and using people in your life to help you feel that way instead of owning your own emotions and taking responsibility for how you think and subsequently feel. Knowing that our emotions respond directly to our thoughts can help us to understand that we need to control how we look at things in order to control how we feel. We do not have to allow our emotions to control us, therefore produce uncontrolled addictive behavior. We can control our emotions by controlling how we choose to look at people, things and our environment. What we think about things determines our reality; not in some mysterious or metaphysical way, but merely by the fact that we can only see things according to our interpretation of said things. Think of some typical stereotypes and you'll understand how our preconceived notions can determine how we view and subsequently respond. Sometimes our thoughts of people, things and our environment can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. We can literally talk ourselves out of things, by believing them too good to be true or not having enough faith in people. People never try their hand at some things because they have convinced themselves that they are not good enough or fear rejection so much that they insult, shun, curse and drive away whatever they fear (or is related to their fear). When we allow our emotions to control us we then believe that we need to control others, things and our environment in order to feel certain ways. No one wants to feel negative emotions, so they do everything they can to only feel positive ones. However life is designed for us to experience its ebb and flow, positive and negative, yin and yang! Our addictions to only positive emotions fuel our behavior in trying to control and manipulate the world around us and the people in it just for the purposes of suiting our fancy. You have people who claim to be Christian whose only purpose for evangelizing is to get others around them to behave decently so they can feel safe and secure, not for the purpose of the pure interest of the one they have evangelized. You have male and female courtiers who have a preconceived notion and vision of the perfect mate... even before they meet that someone. They then spend the rest of their relationship (sometimes lives) trying to get their mate to conform and change into their idea of Mr. /Mrs. Right. We go through so much angst, stress and conflict trying to get our mates to change to suit our desires. If we start owning our emotions and stop making others responsible for how we feel, then maybe we can begin to see how we can truly be content and peaceful. In being responsible for our own emotions we then deal better with each other... blame falls away and we then become more attractive to our mates. It's not that all relationship-related strife and conflict will go away, but the more practised we are the less trials we have to endure. Stop merely pursuing the symptom of love and quest now for love itself!

"YOU ARE WHAT YOU LOVE AND NOT WHAT LOVES YOU!"

for me the best way to define love is T-I-M-E.:salute: