During the seminar I’ve attended in school last week, this question has popped in my head so many times. What is love? Is there a definition for it? When it comes to love there are never ending debates on what love supposed to be. I mean there is the type of love that brings joy and happiness but in most cases, it brings nothing but pain to someone. Why is it so? Why does this little crazy thing called love can have so much impact on someone’s life? Love can make you do things you never thought you’d do. Stories of people sacrificing their family, their friends just because of love? But then again, don’t we all love your family? Our friends? What kind of love is that then? And what about our love for God? Isn’t it the same concept of love? Life is already full of challenges and why do we still choose to meddle with love and make life even more complicated? Why do we choose to let ourselves get hurt over time and time again? Weird isn’t it, our definition of ‘Happiness’? If its true that ‘love is blind’ then who would be the real victim? And if love can be bought, what’s the price we pay?
Well, everyone wants to love and to be loved. But are we all that lucky to find our one true love? Will our lives end up like in the movies, with a happy ever after? I read a lot of Nicholas Spark’s books and I really like his perspective on love, his stories are truly intriguing because he exposes the different concepts of love and proved to me that love, being in a relationship isn’t all butterflies. It’s all about commitment, compromise and sacrifice. What is love without sacrifice? You take the pain out of love and love won’t exist. I really like this definition of love in one of his books, ‘A Walk To Remember’ it tells a tale of a guy and a girl who fell in love with each other despite how different their worlds are and the girl died because of leukemia. Why is love cruel? Anyway, this is the quote:
“Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Loves is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It dose not take offense and is not resentful. Love take no pleasure in others people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”
The quote speaks so much truth, in my honest opinion that is. But can we actually establish a relationship like this, in this particular era when ‘love’ is being justified as nothing but cheesy little movie story plots or in fact, does anyone else here still believe in the concept of ‘True Love’ anymore? Relationships are not taken seriously, hearts are broken even more often, they choose to remain single. I mean, the seminar is about encouraging us teens to get married right? And start a family? But how is that possible with one not believing in love?
During my workshop, my speaker actually shared her married life story and honestly, I find her character truly admirable because she managed to keep calm and stay strong come whatever. Her family had gone through so much pain and loss but still, she ended up happy with her husband and her two children. She even sacrificed her career just to raise up her children. Is it the pain that both parties felt that made them hold on to their marriage? Or was it the commitment that she felt she had to oblige to?
On top of that, there is another topic that really grabbed my attention during the seminar was ‘Legalizing Gay Marriage’ and why it should be okay in Singapore. Honestly, in my opinion, being gay is just inappropriate in terms of religion and also in general. I mean we have women and men for a reason and being gay is choice. You are not born gay. It totally defeats the purpose of reproduction. I am not against gay people, I am against the concept of it. I would really love to speak my mind out about this but I wouldn’t want to have one of those debating sessions again. Moving on.
As I get older, I managed to see a difference between being in love and just loving someone. I’m not really sure how to explain it. Maybe, its not meant to be explained. We have to feel it, we have to experience it. And we will only know if we are lucky enough to go through it. Listening of stories about high school sweethearts never failed to amaze me and make me smile. Is it true that most of us have already met our soul mates in our late teens? How true is it for most of us? Nowadays Hollywood artistes are constantly writing songs about breaking up, about falling in love. But do these songs really portray what love really meant?
Another question is, as much as we want to avoid getting hurt, can we remain single all our life and BE HAPPY? Even if we grow up to be successful individuals can we truly be happy without anyone to share our easy life with?
Bottomline, I can go for as many workshops I would like to on this particular issue. But I personally think, all my questions cannot be answered unless I experience it. Of course, I’m still a big believer in true love, starting my own family, having kids and die happy. And how cliche it may sounds, I’m still waiting for my prince charming riding on his white horse to come and save me. But till then, watching romantic movies would suffice.
