With Valentine’s Day now past, the roses start to droop ever so slightly, and lovely dinners and decadent chocolates have now formed a nice bit of cushioning around our hips and bellies, let’s talk a bit about the word LOVE.
Up until last year, in 2024, I mainly understood the word love as a feeling – to feel loved.
But that is such a narrow perspective for this most remarkable word.
For the philosopher Thomas Aquinas, to love means to will and choose the good of the other consistently. To love your neighbour as self means seeing their sharing in the good as constitutive of your own sharing in the good. In other words, you cannot feel complete, whole, and happy unless your actions align with what is good for the other person.
Can you honestly say that this is how you live your life?
Constantly wanting what is best for the other person in a pure and genuine form? I say this because many women, because of their naturally nurturing souls, go over and above for others – Hello! – you people pleasers! But it is not as authentic and guileless as it may seem – because they do it for the wrong reason. If you are a people pleaser, I bet you never considered yourself disingenuine, but you are. People pleasers who say yes when they want to say no do it out of fear.
Fear of not being liked. Fear of oppression. Fear of being alone. This is not genuine love – and if you cannot share genuine love – don’t bother sharing it at all.
How beautiful love is when it is genuine. If you have experienced genuine love, you know what that feels like. Metamorphically, it is nothing short of a warm hug, the morning light on your skin, a child’s laughter, a cup of hot chocolate on a winter’s day or a call from a best friend when you are feeling down.
There is nothing more breathtaking than genuine love.
When we experience it – we know it. You can’t mistake it. When you receive authentic love, you want more of it. When it is disingenuous, you are further apart.
February is the time to dish out love. Dish it out in vast gobs of your favourite home-cooked meals for your loved ones by making someone laugh or smile with your kindness, helping a child create, or helping an elderly person with a door. The ways are endless.
Remember, to love means to will the good of another. You want what is best for them, not you. But by doing so, you benefit even if it doesn’t seem evident whatsoever, and most often in ways you could have never imagined.