What is LOVE....in your eyes?

I recently completed a survey asking people to answer the following questions: 

1. What is your age?

2. What is your relationship status?

3. Based on your experiences in life, please provide a definition of what you think “love” is in no more than 10 sentences.

4. In your opinion, how do you think society defines love? How do your friends and family view love?

5. If you could change one thing about your current love life, what would it be?

 I asked for the following participants: single aged 16-20, in a relationship aged 16-20, committed but not married 20-30, married 20-30, single 20-30, and finally, married over 20 years. The answers impressed me and I wanted to share them with all of you. This was an eye-opening experience and I am grateful to have soaked in the words from all of my participants. I hope you enjoy this, because I certainly did. 

Our hearts all tell a story. Perhaps the views of others will remind you of that....

The answer to the first question left me speechless thanks to the thoughtful answers of many of my participants. Notice the similarities between the answers of one of the single participants and the married/committed participants. Many answers alluded to love being an active choice. We either choose to love someone (even on days they aren't so easy to love!), or we choose not to. Before I digress any further....read ahead.....

• Based on your experiences in life, please provide a definition of what you think “love” is in no more than 10 sentences.

"...For me "love" is simply a mix of emotions towards a person. Although we refuse to notice it all "love" begins with lust, and it continues until a person no longer feels like they can't live with their "significant other". It's very easy to confuse love with lust and very hard to want to know the reality. Overtime people simply get attached to each other, seeing them everyday, talking with them almost all the time, caring for them, making them smile and that makes a person even more attached and they feel like that's love, but how can they know it's true love if that's the only they've experienced."

-Single, 19 year old female

" Love is waking up to someone and seeing the beauty in life. Love is a feeling that you've got the moon even though it's so far. Love is when you know you've got that forever someone  and nothing else in life will satisfy you, in the way that they can..."

-Engaged, 19 year old female

"It is the balance between two people in which one partner is strong when the other is weak, and vice-versa. It is not being the same, yet still being equal. Two halves of a whole."

-Committed relationship, 27 year old female

"You can choose to accept that person, make sacrifices for them, devote yourself to them and be loyal to them in spite of those imperfections. When the other person does the same with you, that is love."

-Married, 28 year old male

"...love is caring for your partners well being more than your own. I think it is respecting each other and realizing that you don't have to always agree with each other and sometimes you won't even like each other, but you must respect your differences."

-Married 30+ years, female

"Love is a choice, a verb, and an action.  It is the very thing that connects two souls to each other.  It is seeing each other's imperfections and accepting them anyway."

-Single, 30 year old male

• "In your opinion, how do you think society defines love? How do your friends and family view love?"

For this question, I saw many words that I feel should be highlighted: reckless, lust, sex, materialistic (this word came up in two responses), attention-catching, based on feelings and emotions, romanticized, a product, "the one", "Prince Charming", "meant to be"....

Interesting, isn't it? Let those words sink in and let's take a moment to think about the images we see daily. Are they in line with your beliefs or completely opposite of them?

• "If you could change one thing about your current love life, what would it be?"

Several people who were married or in committed relationships responded to this question with a firm "Nothing". Others were more open in what they desired. Note that both participants who were married for over 30 years said that they would change nothing (that makes you feel good, doesn't it? It definitely put a smile on my face!). One individual stated they would be more intimate emotionally with their spouse. One single participant stated they wished they would have spent less time being a "friend with benefits" when they were younger. One woman in a committed relationship stated, "If I could change one thing about my current love life, it would be for each of us to understand each other more easily!". Opposites attract, but sometimes that means we have to work harder to understand each other. One of my younger participants stated, "I'm growing still, so I'm learning and the more I learn, the less mistakes I make and the better the journey is".

Isn't this the truth? We all learn and grow daily. We always learn something new about our loved ones every day. We learn something new about ourselves every day. We will never be perfect. Our partners will never be perfect....but that's the beauty of love. 

Love is when we choose to allow our imperfect selves to love another imperfect person in the most perfect way we are both capable of doing.

Some notable mentions that made my heart smile (because to me, family is one of the things I cherish the most and believe a supportive family can help a relationship greatly)....

"My family defines love in terms of supporting one another."

-28 and in a committed relationship

"Family is love!"

-50 and married

"My elder family members (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles) are of my pattern of thought, however: love is a conscious decision you make day after day. It isn't "happily ever after"; it is happy days and bad days and sad days and dull days and exciting days taking your partner at their worst and their best and still deciding they are worthy of your constant love, respect, and support, and continuously earning their love, respect, and support in return."

-27 and in a committed relationship

"My family has always been very traditional with love. My mom and dad have never separated and always loved one another and respected one another."

-30 and single

"Even the love of my family it's present but someday we will each have our own families to take care of and we won't have time like we do now to love each other. Our families will become our primary "love" and what used to be our primary love will become our second."

-19 and single

Image Source: http://restlesspilgrim.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Love.jpg