Power of Love Essay

We all need love to be able to be connected to others. The more connected you are to a person the more that you are healthier and love is very essential for life, mind, heart, and it is oxygen to the brain. It is important to have love in life. We grow to love others because if comes from within and from our hearts. We need to love to survive to feel the need to belong to someone. Frequently people grow accustomed to each other when they have love in their lives. Frequently, people encounter situations in their environment in which it is impossible to not be with another person when they are in love and feel a bond between each other. It is therefore of great importance for one’s attention and process to be connected to each other through love. I believe love is something that sweeps us off our feet that takes our breath away with that someone special and that special feeling that is shared between two people. It is something that we all need. Love to me is a flower, a word, a song a note something special between two people emotionally. Love is like the best medicine for anything. but many of our ideas about it are wrong. The less love you have, the more depressed you are likely to feel. (By Ellen McGrath, published on December 01, 2002 – last reviewed on March 30, 2009) I have learned that when people are depressed it is because they don’t love themselves and therefore they can’t love anyone else. It is sad to think that so many of us in today’s society are really very sadly depressed and that we feel we have to have someone in our life and that we miss interpret lonely it to love. I have done this before where I have been depressed and have had someone in my life and thought it was love and it was not. I guess when I didn’t love myself, I was not sure how to signal out the two or how to differentiate. Being depressed can attract you to someone, and it totally can be the wrong person for us. What attracts us to another person is there character, personality, Their smile their vulnerability and how they treat us and draw us close to them. We are less likely to befriend someone from another culture because it is more interesting due to other cultures backgrounds, accents. We choose others from other cultures than our own culture because it isn’t new anymore and it is of the same likes as our own. The attribution of attraction is they include. In our textbooks we read about Proximity and that is how our friends lived close to us as we grew up and how the friendships developed over the length of time. Friendship developed (Nahemow & Lawton, 1975). We all know that friendships grow after getting to know someone, and this closeness becomes very easy to win over and turn into a relationship. Just like when we go to school we have classes together and we sit among each other and of course that will develop into making more friends if not relationships and then start making closer bonds with friends. Then there is association where we tend to express our opinions about other people and share our insights with others. We also share similarities and we sometimes associate that with attractiveness and likeness which is something two people share that can result in bonding between two people that share the same qualities. (Neimeyer & Mitchell, 1988) Then we simply tend to like those who like us back or are similar to what we are like. It is a great sense of feeling when you know that you are interacting with someone that is a lot like yourself and that that person likes you back and that you both get a long that you don’t have to pretend to be someone else and that you both get along exceptionally well. We feel good when we are around somebody. We tend to report a higher level of attraction toward that person (Forgas, 1992; Zajonc & McIntosh, 1992) Physical attraction plays a role in who we care to be friends with. Even though that sometimes doesn’t mean that we may be attracted to that person or that we choose that person to be with it is just an attraction that happens between two people who have very similar likes. We can’t help who we are attracted to and who we end up with. It isn’t something we plan it is something that just happens. Opposites attract and that sometimes can bring two people phys ically closer in a relationship than a friendship. Sometimes attractive people attract other attractive people and sometimes attraction has nothing to do with looks what so ever. It is just a mutual or physical bonding that brings two people together. Sometimes a tall person may be attracted to a person who is a short person. A skinny person can be with a heavy person. Attraction isn’t about money, wealth, fame, or young, old or anything like that. It is a feeling that two people share no matter the circumstances and it is the way things are. The human need to build bonds in a relationship is because as human nature we just want to belong to someone. We have basic needs just as an infant needs their mother to carry them, hold them and nurture them so do we. As we get older we need someone to hold us and care for us and tell us that things are going to be okay. It provides stability, security, It totally assist in growth between two people. Just like anything in life we need the use of water, shelter and warmth and we need to be able to have some form of survival in our lives. We need that comfort and that love and that closeness that we feel only one person can give to us. That is what we need to be able to have that human bond in life. Yes we do have an innate to belong of course most definitely because we all want love and we all want to be loved and we all want to love back. We all fear being alone as we grow older and we all fear that everyone will leave us one day and it is a very scary feeling. Many people tend to h ave panic attacks just knowing that they will be alone and that is very depressing. From the very beginning of life In my opinion and in my own life ,I would have to say that loneliness is a very sad feeling and it is a feeling of emotion of being disconnected from society from family, from life in general. It is like when you feel the loss of a loved one that has been in your life for many years and they are no longer around you sense loneliness all around you feel like you have lost your best friend and you feel so isolated and you can be around friends and family all day long and you can feel good on the outside and yet still be dying on the inside with anxiety and panic worrying that you are alone that nobody cares. It is obvious that humans have an innate need to feel connected. We are social beings with many needs and a want and need to belong. Robert Sternberg’s theory he explained the differences of love and that they consisted of three different kind of loves: he des cribed intimacy as a need for emotional connection which is shared between two people who have desire for each other and share intimate feelings. Then he shared passion as he explained passion, he expressed it as a sexual attraction that was a motivational drive that was shared between two people who had such a desire for one another and passion he described as two people who had very deep attractiveness for each other. To me consummated love is between a husband and a wife in a committed union. and that is as Robert Sternberg said it is a thoughtful part of love; it involves first deciding one is â€Å"in love,† which, over time, develops into a lasting commitment to a relationship or person. (Nevid & Rathus, 2005) Romantic love to me is a love that is where you hold hands and you get butterflies. Where intimacy is involved even it is it is not a committed relationship but it is shared between to physically drawn individuals. Romantic lovers look at each other through â€Å"rose colored glasses† not seeing each other’s flaws. (Nevid & Rathus, 2005) Empty love to me is a love where two people are married and yet aren’t in love with one another anymore but they stay together because of security and emotional ties and years have been invested. They stay together for fear of being alone and they deal with each other because it’s out of respect. (Nevid & Rathus, 2005) in today’s society so many people can relate to this sort of love because so many people remain together for their children not realizing that staying together is making the children miserable and that eventually they will grow up and leave the nest making their own lives elsewhere. I think this is such a sad love. Infatuation is a relationship based on passion, with no intimacy or commitment. Infatuation is characterized by passionate attraction on sight, and an example of such would be a one night stand. (Nevid & Rathus, 2005) Why do so many people want to stay together and ruin their lives in an empty love relationship? Th ey don’t realize that by being honest with themselves they could start a new with someone else and be totally happy. Today so many men have affairs in an empty love relationship even if they are secure, have fear and stay together because of finances and obligations. Why can’t we all just be happy and be with the one person that makes us the happiest. I know this feeling all too well and I chose to walk away from an empty love. Free to be happy, Free to independent, free to be free and not with someone out of obligation. It is sad to be with someone who you don’t desire or love anymore. It is not right to make someone stay with you just because you have been together for so long. I longed to be desired and loved and wanted and needed with someone who truly loved me and was willing to make a commitment and give themselves to me entirely. I chose to be with someone who I am in love with and who has my heart. Not someone I feel an obligation or duty to at all. That is like saying, If I wanted a maid, I would have married a maid.â€Å" But I married a partner, A best friend, my soul mate my companion and my everything. That to me is a genuine love and so many people don’t know what they are looking for in life and it’s the saddest thing if you ask me. References: Referred By Ellen McGrath, published on December 01, 2002 – last reviewed on March 30, 2009 http://beta.in-mind.org http://panicdisorder.about http://voices.yahoo.com/sternbergs-theory-love