Last update: Augusts 26, 2016
Loving and loving are both wonderful but different feelings. We all (or almost all) have a firm and unshakable purpose in our life: to love someone with all our strength.
We think about it and yearn for it for the simple fact that we believe it is the right path to happiness. And we are not mistaken when we think that a healthy attachment is essential for being in the world.
However, for some reason, we end up confusing loving with loving; consequentially, we fill our emotional backpack with false "I love you" and empty "I love you".
Emotional wisdom in The Little Prince's dialogues
Saint-Exupéry, through the work The Little Prince, gives us a beautiful passage, which today we want to propose to you with the intention of shedding light on this powerful emotional reality that concerns us all.
"I love you" - said the Little Prince.
"I love you too" - answered the rose.
"But it's not the same thing," he replied. - «To love means to take possession of something, of someone. It means seeking in others what fills personal expectations of affection, of companionship. To love means to make ours what does not belong to us, to desire something to complete ourselves, because we feel that we are missing something. "
To love means to hope, to be attached to things and people according to our needs. And if we are not reciprocated, we suffer. When the person we love doesn't match us, we feel frustrated and disappointed.
If we love someone, we have certain expectations. If the other person doesn't give us what we expect, we feel bad. The problem is that there is a high probability that the other is pushed to act differently than we would like, because we are not all the same. Each human being is a universe unto itself.
To love means to desire the best of the other, even when the reasons are different. To love is to allow the other to be happy, even when his path is different from ours. It is a disinterested feeling that arises from the desire to give oneself, to offer oneself completely from the bottom of the heart. For this, love will never be a source of suffering.
When a person says he has suffered for love, in reality he has suffered for having loved. He suffers from attachments. If one truly loves, one cannot feel bad, because nothing is expected of the other. When we love, we offer ourselves totally without asking for anything in return, for the pure and simple pleasure of "giving". But it is clear that this selfless self-giving and self-giving can only take place if there is knowledge.
We can only love someone when we really know them, because loving means taking a leap into the void, entrust their life and soul. And the soul cannot be indemnified. Knowing each other means knowing what the joys of the other are, what his peace is, what his anger, his struggles and his mistakes are. Because love goes beyond anger, struggle and mistakes and is not present only in happy moments.
To love means to fully trust in the fact that the other will always be there, whatever happens, because he owes us nothing: it is not a matter of our selfish possession, but of a silent company. To love means that we will not change with the weather or with the storms or with the winters.
To love is to give the other a place in our heart so that he remains with us as a partner, father, mother, brother, son, friend; to love is to know that even in the heart of the other there is a special place for us. Giving love does not exhaust its quantity, on the contrary, it increases it. And to return all that love, you need to open your heart and let yourself be loved.
"Now I understand" - answered the rose after a long pause.
«The best is to live it» - the Little Prince advised her.
Another very interesting lesson in this regard is offered to us by Buddhism. It wisely states that if you want a flower because you "love it", you can pick it up and take it with you. If you love it, however, you water it every day and take care of it.
Finally, when we love someone, we accept them as they are, we stay by their side and always try to leave traces of happiness in them and joy. Because feelings have to come from the deepest part of us to be pure and intense.
For this reason, it is essential to do an inner exercise and ask ourselves if we are behaving in the right way, if we are managing our attachments and our feelings better or if, instead, we are confused by the desire to attribute deep and permanent words to our relationships.
