WTH is Love?

Love is .....?

For most people, love or finding love is complicated and a struggle. Love, as we all learned, is "supposed" to be pleasant, caring, understanding, kind, thoughtful, selfless, and unconditional. However, the concept of love many times, does not have all of the above qualities. People learn to love differently, and their expression of love is very diverse from person to person or culturally. We all want to be loved but we don't experience Love in its fullness. So how do we fix this problem.....

• Love yourself first- know the things you want in life and work toward self happiness. Self love is a learned skill if you were not raised to vaule the person you are, but it's enjoyable once you understand it. Start with simple things, movies alone, dinner at the bar, or just time are home with a good snack or drink. Alone time allows you to think and regroup after work, school, or just a day of running errans. 
• Family love- our relatives help us learn how to love others, and sometimes it's a sophisticated type of love. Loving a relative is a loving relationship with disagreeable lifestyles, theologies of life, or respect level. These relationships are great for training because it teaches us to learn to love despite personal differences. It's challenging to love someone you can't cancel out of your life, so we learn to manage the relationship by trying different methods to reach a good place. The experiment of changing loving style may not happen overnight, days, weeks, or years. However, its one that needs time and patience to develop. 
• Friendship or romantic love- is the most tricky because friendships or romantic relationships can end. However, many times people learn to love others, and some form of betrayal takes place to challenge the trust in the relationship. For so, this is a deal-breaker depending on the level of deception.  For others, its a work in progress to get understanding and continue to try.  Either way, both parties must understand the dynamics of the relationship to move forward. Clear standards set, respect levels addressed, and boundaries for violations must be clear, so all parties understand the consequences if disrespected. 

Love can be joyous and beautiful if standards are set early on to give each participant clear expectations. Guidelines allow the responsible parties the opportunity to make a consequence decision on the level of love they would like to experience. 

Keep trying and work at your standard of respect. !!!!