Love: Feeling or Action

Love is...

Being “in love” may be a feeling, but I was taught love is an action. It is a choice…a decision one makes to give to others. We choose to love our parents, our kids, our friends, our neighbors, and our lovers. And when I choose to love someone, it is an unconditional thing. I choose to love others no matter what they do or who they become. I don’t choose to love my parents less because they are aging and frail or are becoming forgetful or more angry. I choose to love them in spite of those things. The way I love changes when they need to experience my love differently, but I don’t love them any less.

When I choose to love my friends, I don’t stop loving them when they come out of the closet or tell me they are non-binary; or if they become riddled with incurable cancer, get a divorce, hate their own parents, or vote contrary to my beliefs. No, I love them just as much as before. Their pronouncements, changes, and infirmities are not part of the equation of love, and so my love does not falter.

But in a relationship with a lover, so many people see love differently and don’t practice unconditional love. They replace everlasting love with dreams of and desires for romantic love, romantic magic–a feeling kind of love that does not last. Oh, it is wonderful when those feelings are there, but I always looked forward to the mature love that follows and grows with time; that is, time together celebrating one another’s accomplishments, time together working through the downs and disappointments, and time together just being present with one another with no expectations.

But I will also say that when you choose to love a partner unconditionally, it doesn’t mean you put up with on-going abuse–abuse such as sexual neglect or emotional abandonment. Leaving a relationship that is more neglectful than loving does not mean you did not love unconditionally, it simply means you drew a boundary in your sand and said you will no longer accept the abuse and the neglect.

In the Netflix series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the Queen had the following exchange with her son who was about to wed a woman that she had chosen for him to marry.

Son: Mother, I am afraid I will not be able to love her.

Queen Charlotte: Love is not a thing one is able to do by some magic or chemistry. That is for plays. Love is determination. Love is a choice one makes. You take someone in marriage and choose to love. You do not give yourself any other options, because marriage is difficult and full of pains…so you grab someone and you hang on and you love and you love hard, because if you do not, you are lost.

I believe love is an action. It is a choice. You choose to love or not love no matter what you are feeling. And love is the strongest and most beautiful when it is unconditional.

My song Every Day highlights the vast array of actions that make up love. I reference 1st Corinthians 13, a chapter in the Bible that poetically lists the active and powerful role love plays in caring for other people.

Every Day
by Cindy Akana