Me without you…
I become the best version of myself.
Living ones’ life is a skill that has to be acquired, like learning to ride a bicycle or play the piano, says Alain de Botton in his novel On Love.
And when you have learned to live your own life, you don’t accept anything but a mature love. The one that is marked by an active awareness of the good and bad within each person, it is full of temperance, it resists idealization, it is free of jealousy, masochism, or obsession, it is a form of friendship with a sexual dimension, it is pleasant, peaceful, and reciprocated.
I empower my capacity to love.
There are three misconceptions about love.
- Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love.
- People think that to love is simple, but that to find the right object to love—or to be loved by—is difficult.
- The third error leading to the assumption that there is nothing to be learned about love lies in the confusion between the initial experience of “falling” in love, and the permanent state of being in love, or as we might better say, of “standing” in love.
Erich Fromm, author of The Art of Loving, states that love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character, which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love.
In other words, Osho, one of the most revolutionary thinkers of our time, author of Being in Love, says:
Love is never a relationship; love is relating. It is always a river, flowing, undending. Love knows no full stop; the honeymoon begins but never ends. It is not like a novel that starts at a certain point and ends at a certain point. It is an ongoing phenomenon. Lovers end, love continues. It is a coninuum. It is a verb, not a noun.
I have a joyous and fulfilling life.
The first step is to become aware that no one else can make you happy, and that happiness is a result of love coming out of you. You should also be aware that everyone dreams his own dream. Once you know this, you can be responsible for your half of the relationship, which is you.
If you know what is love and what is fear, you become aware of the way you communicate your dreams to others.
In The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz explains what love is and what fear is.
Love has no obligations. Fear is full of obligations.
Love has no expectations. Fear is full of expectations.
Love is based on respect. Fear doesn’t respect anything, including itself.
Love is ruthless; it doesn’t feel sorry for anyone, but it does have compassion. Fear is full of pity; it feels sorry for anyone.
Love is completely responsible. Fear avoids responsability.
Love is always kind. Fear is always unkind.
Love is unconditional. Fear is full of conditions