What Love Is And What Love Is Not

“Why do you seek to write about love when you’ve never been in, known or experienced love”?. This question was asked me by a friend who got surprised by hearing that I’ve never been into any romantic relationship.

To create humor, I laughed and replied with the question “Do you understand love”? and he was dumbfounded.
What is Love?

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As the saying by Johann Wolfgang goes, “we are shaped and fashioned by what we love”
Love is a profound and caring affection towards someone.

Gottfried Wilhelm said, “To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another”.
François De La Rochefoucauld summarized it when he said: “There’s only one sort of love, but there are a thousand copies”.

There’s no doubt that this love is Agape. This is the unconditional and brotherly kind of love. It is the kind from mother to child. This kind is pure, true, perfect, and real.

According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, agape means wide open. It is that this love is wide open and ready to receive and accommodate all.

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This loves is one that is reckless but causes no wreck.
Love is not a short term business that one quits when fed up or one that can be affected by factors. Many times, one would tell another “I don’t love you anymore”.

If I ever loved you and don’t anymore, I never did.
Love is a great virtue and gift, indeed the greatest virtue of all.

If there’s anything better than to be loved, it is loving. Love is giving or sharing your little to or with many when the need be.

It is helping others even in inconvenience. It is being charitable without necessarily being in a charity foundation.
God is love personified, all he does is love and in love.

Love is the bond of perfectness. Love is the Spirit’s fruit. Love is the summary of Paul’s first epistolary message to the Corinthians.

How does love work?

You get a lot of loving but have you ever loved?. It implies that ‘as much as you receive love, give love’. You don’t have to generate feelings to love.

As Henry Wadsworth said, Love gives itself, it cannot be bought”. You don’t have to convince anyone to love you. It is not forced. It is an action that ought to be carried out.

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Love is growing friendship in many better areas other than sweet words because it’s not enough to say I’m in love with you. Is it pure?.

Love is not just in saying but in showing. Showing love shouldn’t be done just to reciprocate one’s good deeds. Love does not always follow the principle of “One good turn deserves another”.

Love is in the place and motive of the heart. Love is showing kindness without expecting a reward. Love is not blind but it blinds; It blinds one’s eyes from seeing the faults of another.

Love also makes one see clearly; seeing people who are in need of true love but cannot speak out or love back. It is loving someone despite their behavior.

Sometimes, love is not appreciated but it shouldn’t be a hindrance to showing love. We do not love to be appreciated, though appreciation stirs up more love.

Love is thinking of others before ourselves. It is treating others the same way you would want to be treated. It is placing the problems of others before ours.

Love is making someone, not blood related, part of your family. Love is not just praying to God to bless you, but that he also makes you a channel for blessing others.

Love is affirming true love to everyone you meet because that’s what you owe them. It is not only in a romantic relationship you can find love. It is not just what we picture in a relationship.

Saying ‘I love you’ shouldn’t be only to someone you have feelings for. As human rights are inalienable and freely enjoyed by people for just being humans, so is love.

Everyone deserves it, but if your show of love to them causes them to think otherwise, leave them to their thought, but don’t give them up to hate.

Love is not saying ‘I love you’ in good times and keeping mute in moments of displeasure. It goes beyond immediate pain.

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The principle of love implies that even at times when your heart is filled with hate, hate with love. Love still prevails. Love conquers hate.

Love is not only when a gentleman affirms first and the lady follows suit, but it is when a lady realizes that she can love first. Love is not how the world views it

Many Nollywood movies come up with titles like ‘Victim of Love’ But love does not victimize, it drives out fear, and keeps no record of wrongs.

What is love built on?

Love is not a substance built on beauty because beauty fades but real love never fades.

It is neither a substance built on the number of late-night calls.

Love is not in the multitude of text or social media messages.

Love is not built on the number of views, likes, and comments accumulated on one’s post or status update.

Love is not sending someone a love emoji or saving contact with a heart emoji. It goes beyond that.

Love is not admiration, it is not lust, neither is it crush. Love is not hugs and kisses. Love is not making love. Love is not romance. It is not proven by sexual intercourse.

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The true definition of love is not any of these. Love has been frustrated and relegated into being something less than itself.

The real theme of love cannot be exhausted or overemphasized. But love, in summary, is a true flow from the heart which should not be hindered by anything.