How-To-2: How to Love

How to Love

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Love is a strange thing. It can be the most amazing feeling in the world, or it can really hurt, but in the end love is something most, if not all of us, will face. While there are many different ways to define love and there are many different ways to love someone (even yourself), here is a general guide to loving. Love is the continual act of unconditionally putting the needs of others before your own.

Steps

1. Say it. When you say the words "I Love You," do they carry it with them the desire to show someone you love them or do they carry it with them is it what you want to feel? And when you say it make sure you really mean it and are willing to do anything for that special person.
   
2. Empathize. Put yourself in someone else's shoes. Rather than impose your own expectations or attempt to control them, try to understand how they feel, where they come from, and who they are; and realize how they could also love you back just as well.
   
3. Love unconditionally. If you cannot love another person without attaching stipulations, then it is not love at all, but deep-seated opportunism (one who makes the most of an advantage, often unmindful of others). If your interest is not in the other person as such, but rather in how that person can enhance your experience of life, then it is not unconditional. If you have no intention of improving that person’s life, or allowing that person to be themselves and accepting them as they are, and not who you want them to be, then you are not striving to love them unconditionally.
   
4. Expect nothing in return. That doesn't mean you should allow someone to mistreat or undervalue you. It means that giving love does not guarantee receiving love. Try loving just for loving's sake. Realize that someone may have a different way of showing his or her love for you; do not expect to be loved back in exactly the same way.
   
5. Realize it can be lost. If you realize that you can lose the one you love, then you have a greater appreciation of what you have. Think how lucky you are to have someone to love.
   

Tips

• It does not make you a bad person to desire someone else's love, even if they do not love you. However, to truly love someone, you must let them be free. It is selfish to blame them for your feelings.
  
• There are many types of love, for example: a mother-son love is different from a best friend's love, which is different from a romantic love. Don't be ashamed to tell anyone that you love your friends as much as you love anyone else in your life.
  
• You have to find someone that will suit you, someone you feel comfortable with - not just someone to make love to.
  
• As a word, love can be found worldwide and is often used to describe compassion and/or emotional attachment. Accepting those you love for who they are is part of love. You also need to learn to accept yourself before you can accept another. If you cannot love your self, how are you to love another?
  
• Love genuinely. Do not compare your feelings now to what your feelings were when you were with another mate. At times, we can experience rejection.
  
• Realize that love is a feeling that wikihow can describe and attempt to assist, but ultimately, you are the one who must take action in order to discover love.
  
• Do things that make the other person feel good, but do not smother them with gifts and attention.
  
• Consider some tips about what people in love do.
  
  • People in love are sensitive to each other's needs, and endeavor to meet them even when they do not feel like doing it.
    
  • Men and women may be equal in value but different by nature. People who truly are in love give their mates "space" to develop their potential and find their fulfillment in life.
    
  • Love does not brag. People who are truly in love refrain from rehearsing their good traits just to show off. Bragging in a relationship often is really defensiveness.
    
  • People who are truly in love do not insist that their way is best and demand that their mates give in to them.
    
  • People who are truly in love are considerate of each others feelings and courteous in their actions toward one another. Sadly sarcasm is a way of life for some couples. They ridicule each other, belittle each other and trade jibes with a fury. They may say it is all in fun, but it leaves wounds that will someday become festering sores.
    
  • People who are truly in love look out for their mates' best interests as much as their own. Those in love should be concerned not only about their own individual interests, but about the interests of the other as well.
    
  • People who truly love control their anger when the other displeases them. We are all human, and all humans feel anger periodically, but we only express our anger in destructive ways when we counting on someone else to meet our needs.
    
  • People who truly love each other do not take pleasure in their mates' disappointments or failures.
    
  • People who truly love each other treat their mates with absolute trust. Some husbands and wives torment themselves with groundless suspicions. If you look for trouble you will find it every time.
    
  • People who truly love look forward to their relationship growing more meaningful and precious. They have hope. Which is an attitude that happily anticipates the good. It isn't being blind and denies there are problems, but it does look beyond the problems. People who truly love each other do not allow their problems to rob them of their happiness.
    
  
  

Warnings

• You must love yourself before you can love another.
  
• There is always the risk of getting hurt, but that's part of letting yourself fully love and trust some one. Being hurt could be long-lasting and could hurt more than anything in the world.
  
• Realize what you have while you have it, and care for the person you trust.
  
• If something comes to an end, try to let go rather than holding on; it's for the best.
  
• The idea of love is fueled by childhood fantasies. The love shown in movies, as obtainable as it may be, is rare to say the least.
  
• You just may find your soul-mate sooner than you want to.
  
• If you feel any doubt of love your partner has for you, it is probably true. when you give and receive love 100%, you will have no doubt in your heart.
  
• Don't ask for love - you should receive love because your partner wants to give you love - not because you want it from your partner.
  
• Do not force love - it will come in good time, it will come.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Define Love
  
• How to Know the Difference Between Love, Infatuation and Lust
  
• How to Tame a Free Spirit
  
• How to Show Your Wife or Husband That You Truly Love Them
  
• How to Get a Man to Marry You
  
• How to Write a Love Letter
  
• How to Explicate a Poem
  
• How to Write a Love Poem
  
• How to Become Inspired to Write Poetry
  

Sources and Citations

• Love on Wikipedia
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Love. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How-To-1: How to Define Love

How to Define Love

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

“How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?” — Albert Einstein
Love is difficult to define. How do you avoid confusing it with infatuation or lust? Philosophers and psychologists both have attempted to define love, or at least its difference from infatuation and lust. If you are looking to find love, the following observations may be helpful.

Steps

1. The dictionary defines love in the ways we use the word. For example love is:
   
   • A strong positive emotion of. affection or pleasure. e.g. "His love for his work." or "I love cooking."
     
   • Any object of warm affection or devotion or liking; "the theater was her first love". I love French food.
     
   • Beloved: a beloved person; used as terms of endearment
     
   • A deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction. e.g. "She was his first love" or "She loves her husband."
     
   • A score of zero in tennis or squash; "It was 40 love!"
     
   • Sexual love: sexual intercourse between two people. e.g. "They made love." "He hadn't had any love in months";
     
   
   
2. Love is characterized by the desire to do anything for that person no matter what. And you're willing to work out your problems together. And you just can't hardly breathe when you're around them and even though you may see them all the time or hardly ever it's as if you get that rush of what you felt when you got your first kiss #The Greeks defined love in four categories:
   
   • AGAPE love is unconditional love. It is love by "CHOICE". A good example is "GOD LOVES US"
     
   • PHI LEO love is the love of "ATTRACTION" guided by our likes or our healthy or unhealthy needs and desires.
     
   • STORGE is a physical show of "AFFECTION" the need for physical touch.
     
   • EROS is the physical "SEXUAL" desire, intercourse.
     
   
   
3. Define love, what does it mean to you? Be bold and write down the feelings and thoughts you have about love.
   
4. Be aware of moments you feel love towards anyone or anything.
   
5. Consider your motives, what are you getting from the situation.
   
6. Think about whether you'd feel the same way if the other person's looks were to change.
   
7. Capture that feeling with metaphors, poetry or songs.
   
8. Define love like a psychologist: love can be viewed triangularly. There are three key components: passion, intimacy, and commitment.
   
   • Passion underlies physical desire, sexual behavior, and arousal. This is the physical side.
     
   • Intimacy is the emotional aspect: closeness, connectedness, and warmth of friendship.
     
   • Commitment is the decision-making part "CHOICE" of love; are couples willing to work it out?
     
   
   
9. Understand that love may start as harmless flirting and smiles and winks and maybe even kissing, but it is usually infatuation at this point, a more curious approach by one or both parties. While time is usually spent looking to discover more about this intriguing person, much time will be spent pondering the many possibilities of what could happen, or the consequences that may become of a certain action, or on the other hand the good that may come of it.
   
10. Understand that most often to the person in love there will be little left of interest in the real world, food will taste bland, concentrating will have become a serious mental struggle and even fun pastimes may seem worthless, as pacing and walking or even simply sitting or lying while thinking about the person seems a more sensible thing to do.
    
    • This type of behavior can lead to serious disturbances at work and at home, especially if the person feeling love is already an item with somebody else with whom they may have shared these feelings at some time in the past.
      
    
    
11. Note that although love has never been scientifically proven to exist, it is thought; quite accurately as of yet that one can only be in love with one person or thing at a time. The part of the human being that is reserved for sharing with another (which some may call the soul, or the heart) is used up while dedicating itself to that one source, and that it is impossible to feel the overwhelming feeling twice at once.
    
    • Although similar, love is thought not to be like pain which has definite locations; it is thought that it can move around, although usually it will reside in the lower stomach or the bottom of the throat, with sensitive areas like the temples and the legs and joints feeling stressed and weak. The mouth is often dry and the eyes seem strained, and this is all usually given the diagnosis of love sickness; or in some cases where love isn't present; influenza.
      
    
    
12. Understand that time does seem to be the only healer in the case of love. The full connection of two loving parties (mutually) could lead to a stronger relationship, and developments such as procreation and marriage; but in the case of a single party or the rejection of the first party by the second, or even in the case of a secret love, being in love will usually only fade after the interest is out of sight and out of mind, or gives full closure to the pursuer.
    
13. Realize that in some cases (especially in literature) love will last forever. No matter how much time passes by, or what obstacles become present in the path to true and pure love, love will endure. This may be far fetched from reality, but many find it to be a preferable way to think.
    
    • Although this may be a much more joyous belief to have of love, there are also those situations where love does fail. This can be easily said to have been due to false love of mistaken identity between persons (as lovers are star crossed and are meant to find each other). Either way, the difference between feeling love and not feeling it is a distinct one, and cannot be mistaken. It is a true sickness that is present and can be more crippling than the flu, depression and many other illnesses combined.
      
    • Love can cause war; in the cases of love of religion and the love of money; war can cause people to steal and murder, it can lead to suicide and shatter marriage and family life, it can spread disease and give birth to evil; but love is eternal and cannot be eliminated, it is what makes people human. "I think therefore I am" may also be translated as "I love therefore I am". Being able to think give us the ability to choose our partners not because of their breed or simple survival of the fittest, but in order for us to develop as human beings, and to share our love and spread it on to new generations, so that while love lasts eternally, our mark upon humanity lasts forever through our children and children's children; we have made our mark upon humanity; our genetic code will continue to be passed on and develop for ever more. This possibility is a gift, not a dedication, we have to choose as we were born with conscientiousness, not animal instinct.
      
    • Desire is the want of more and is unfillable, not to be confused with Love which is joy and contentment.
      
    
    

Tips

• There are many combinations, all of which form some kind of love. Is there passion and friendship but very little commitment? This is defined as "passionate love." Are you committed but feel no passion or friendship? This is called "empty love." What most people ultimately desire, is "TRUE LOVE" the total package: passion, intimacy, friendship and commitment in one healthy relationship. It's the most fulfilling love. It is unconditional, and in my opinion the only "CHOICE".
  
• For inspiration, read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous poem, "How Do I Love Thee?"
  
• For additional inspiration, you might want to consider this Shakespeare quotation: "Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds" (Sonnet 116)
  

Warnings

• Just because you feel love doesn't mean the other person does!
  
• People are capable of falling in and out of love so if your "true love" turns out to be abusive or makes you cry more than smile, end it and find a healthy person to love.
  
• Remember there are levels of love, and true love is a "CHOICE" and just because someone says they love you doesn't mean they love you. Their actions will tell.
  
• Love is not a feeling. couples who have been married for a considerable amount of time, at least 10 years, can tell you that true love is not a feeling. Feelings tend to come and go; true love shouldn't.
  
• Love can take over your whole life if you are not careful. Let it not take you over, but become a part of who you are. When you think about the person you love it should make you want to be a better person, for them.
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Love
  
• How to Know the Difference Between Love, Infatuation and Lust
  
• How to Express Your Feelings to the One You Love
  
• How to Make a Romantic Scrapbook
  
• How to Maintain Romance
  
• How to Get a Real Good Man
  
• How to Be a Poet
  
• How to Find Your Soulmate
  
• How to Get a Man to Marry You
  
• How to Explicate a Poem
  

Sources and Citations

• Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?"
  
• The Love Chapter
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Define Love. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Little Nuggets-105:

Everytime you smile at someone,

it is an action of love,

a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

- Mother Teresa

(Grateful thanks to Jon Sullivan and Public-Domain-Photos.com for freely providing the photograph for this quote)

Little Nuggets-104

Death Valley Sand Dunes by Jon Sullivan

from Public-Domain-Photos.com

(www.public-domain-photos.com)

Love is a force that is gentle in nature but powerful and mighty - Ralph P.Brown

Grateful thanks to Jon Sullivan and the Public-Domain-Photos.com for freely providing the above photograph.