Love And Philosophy Essay, Research Paper
Danny Radd
Philosophy
Love for a spouse
As a child we never think we will ever enjoy the company of the opposite sex, but as we grow older and wiser we finally see the need for each other. throughout my life I have had girlfriends come and go without recorse or significant feelings toward them; granted, I was very fond of them and did not want them to leave me, but they never filled the void that was missing in my heart. As I recollect on what love means to me and what love should be i think of 5 basic characteristics that make the love of a spouse sincere and without flaw. the characteristics i believe to be important are trust, personal value, value for others, mutual respect, and equal use of mind and heart. these 5 characteristics have got me were I am today and after 4 years I still feel the same way I did the first day we met and more.
the first characteristic that i will talk about is trust. To some people this is a basic virtue of all relationships and stems from generation to generation of good advice brought by our parents. Trust is important in relationships not only for the obvious reason that without it a person is miserable, but it also enhances the things in life that are waiting to happen. The biggest problem with jealousy and mistrust is that it blocks your vision of what things can be and what future you want. If only people new the truth about there partner everything would be alright, but in reallity this will never be the case we will always be searching for answers that are hard to find and the only way to find these answeers will be by asking our partners what they are feeling and how this is affecting them. People do not seem to understand what the other person in a relationship is thinking and before aking them what th problem is the come up with some preconcieved notion or answer that can be completely false. In my personal life I have had this happen to me many times and I have also done this to a partner many times, but the minute I found her the woman I have been waiting for I knew that there was no mistrust and the fealings that I had before no longer could stay because from now on I will have to change my preconcieved notions about what I think she says and put the work into the relationship and find out what she means the hard way, ask them what they are feeling.
Before trust can evn play a part in a relationship both partners have to have personal value. without value a person cannot express true love because they do not love themelves. As I wright this paper on love and come across this characteristic of personal value I find myself speaking from a first hand view because I to have had a problem with falling in love with myself. I remember meating my wife and thinking to myself how beautifulk she was on the inside as well as the outside, but as I got to know her better I noticed that she was in love with her life as well as herself in a non-egotistic way. I noticed the way she spoke of others and of herself using beautiful sentences that described what people meant to her and what she could do for others and how it would help her. After a month of listening to this array of self gratiification i took a good look at myself and what my oulook on myself was. I noticed that my life was an internal disaster and everything I did was half of what it could be. What I mean by half of what it could be is that we as people only excercise the half that does things for others leaving us resentful and this forms hatred for what we are doing, but as a person uses the half that is working for themselves as well sa others we find an internal peace that cannot be described. My wife has taught me a lot about life and what it means to have personal value and how without it love cannot be tuly attained. Without love for yourself you cannot love another.
After achieving personal value which believe me is no simple task a person can then love another which leads me to my third characteristic which is the value for others. Value for others may sound simple, but value for others means complete respect and unending understanding. If only we could live the first two weeks of our relationships for the rest of our lives. Remember the way we felt, like we would do anything for this person at any time. This is when theire value for others is at its peak. During the first two weeks of all relationships we find the need to want to find out all of the information we can about this person and show them that we care bout what they are interested in and what they are doing. I do not know why we give up afte two weeks. many people end up breaking up or giving up after two weeks of showing someone else we care. It is funny that this hapens because those two weeks enclose some of the best times a person has ever had. In love a person has to have value for others fealings, opinions, and ideas or the relationship will not work out. As I talk about my wife and the love we have for eachother I find myself being reminded of the respect I have for her and the way we both value eachothers presence. Without our love for eachother we know we woulld be miserable and without a piece of our hearts.
My fourth characteristic is mutual respect. mutual respect is something that happens when true love is attained. Mutual respect is vital in love because without it a person feels as if they are unapreciated and unwanted. I do not believe that attaining mutual respect is hard for a lot of couples, but I do believe it is hard to let your partner now how much you respect their opinions and ideas. I believe it is hard because of time; time goes by without