Love: A Choice, A Feeling, or Both?
Love it or hate it, Valentine's Day is tomorrow, and chocolate is going to be horribly overpriced until the day after next. Hallmark sure did collect a pretty penny on this mid-February day, but most of us would still like to think that the day is somewhat centred around the idea of love. This begs the question...what even is love?
A choice?
A feeling?
All of the above?
What, did you not come prepared for the pop quiz?
This topic came up a few times over the past couple of weeks in my conversations, and my cousin conveniently posed the question on her Facebook page. Most agreed that love is, in fact, a choice. I would have to say the same.
Love is a choice accompanied by feelings, but I don't believe that love in and of itself is a feeling. Certainly not that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you look your significant other in the eyes after they just handed you a box of $35.00 chocolate that'll cost 15 cents in a day and a half. Certainly not that fullness you experience when surrounded by family at the dinner table. That feeling isn't love, but rather admiration, affection, and so on.
Love is an action that requires a choice to execute. You choose to show someone love through actions. You choose to act. You choose to foster a relationship, or let it simmer out and die. You choose love, whether or not it's romantic. I could scream from the rooftops that I love my mom, but what does it matter if I never answer her calls, texts, and shut her out for the next fifteen years?
I think it's better if love is a choice because you can continually, consciously choose love in any and every aspect of life. If love were purely a feeling, it would not be everlasting. Feelings fade. Today, I may feel angry, but I know that I won't always feel that way. I wouldn't want to live in a world where I didn't think love was something of permanence, that at any moment, it could fade away and leave me feeling empty.
Everyday, I choose love. I choose to love my family by helping them and bonding with them, even if that means doing the dishes or shovelling the driveway when I'm really tired and don't want to. I choose to love my friends by checking up on them if I know they've had a rough week. I choose to love my students by teaching them to respect and help each other, and show each other kindness. I choose love--not because it's always easy, or because it means doing something fun and exciting. I choose love because love is the most important thing. It is the most important choice. I choose love, even when it's hard, because as hard as it may be to choose love, choosing hate is even harder, and the greatest burden to bear.
Choose love on Valentine's Day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that....
Love and light,
Reina M
