Learning to Love

Kristen Carroll

September 26, 2015

English 101

Prof. Patel

Learning to Love

        We, as humans, are motivated by the presence of love. If it were not for the love inside of each and every one of us, we would not have the tendencies to care. We could lack the qualities one must obtain to provide the necessary nourishments of love. Therefore, if it were not for love itself, we would be physically unable to adhere to the demands and the necessities that the maintenance of love requires. The love that a mother possesses for her child serves as an ideal example to prove my argument. If a mother lacks the internal qualities of love for her child, she would not carry the tendencies to show affection and care towards her child; which are ultimately required to preserve an everlasting love. Conclusively, love can be defined by itself: the power of love. Therefore, it takes internal love to distribute love.

        We all yearn to be loved and to be able to exert that love onto others, however, it is not a task easily accomplished. Simply put: it is not something that comes naturally. Many people believe that we are born already obtaining the background knowledge on how to love and how to show compassion for one another. They assume it is one of the many instinctive qualities that humans possess from the moment they enter this world. I, however, detest this widely prevalent belief. I believe that in order to love, you must have something within you that inspires those feelings to be projected. In order to spread our love we must first obtain the internal qualities, the qualities in which we gain and learn over time, that therefore allow us to share our love with others. We must see love in action and observe compassion to acquire the skills necessary to therefore perform the action of loving. Loving is similar to any other action we perform, we must first learn how to conduct that action and the qualities in which go into performing that action, before we learn how to commence it. Conclusively, learning to love is not a task that can be learned overnight. It is complex in its qualities. It requires a build up, an accumulation, of knowledge, wisdom, experience, and exposure to the emotion.

        Some may present the argument: well, if love doesn’t come naturally then why do we tell people we love them and do nice things those of whom we believe ourselves to love? The answer to this is quite simple. People disguise fake, artificial, and unlearned “love” with the purist form of love. In today’s society, the phrase “I love you” has become far too commonly used. People argue that it is enough to rely solely on the verbal expression of the love in which they believe to feel for another. However, what they fail to understand that it is not enough to simply state three insincere words that they associate with their feelings, they must prove it. Through the act of demonstrating feelings and showing compassion rather than solely stating it, one has the ability to acquire the traits one must obtain to love and begin to develop a genuine familiarity of the truest form of love.