all you need is love

All we need is love

The Beatles got it right with their song “All You Need is Love.” Everybody wants to be loved, everybody needs love and in truth everybody is loved. But why don’t we always feel loved and why is it so hard to find the love we crave?

Most of us equate love with romance, but in tennis love means nothing. Remember the old Love Tester Arcade Machines that you would see at fairs, arcades, restaurants, etc.? For ten cents one could test their appeal by gripping the handle and waiting for a “state of the art” analysis. Those meters segmented love nine times. For nostalgic reasons I list the levels: blah, clammy, harmless, mild, wild, burning, passionate, hot stuff and uncontrollable.

It’s not surprising we’ve liken the meaning of love to passion or enchantment. All our lives we’ve been subtly imbued to movies, novels, magazines, and television programs that escalate love to an uncontrollably intense reflex leaving us powerless against affairs of our heart. But even though such extreme feelings can exist and may be the dawn of genuine love, it is unrealistic to assume this level of intensity will remain forever. This type of love is called Eros love, which means desire and longing and it’s actually a selfish love. Eros love is usually born out of an attraction or some self-benefit such as a remedy against loneliness therefore when the intensity diminishes the individual tends to fall out of love.

There are other types of love such as the love of a friend, sibling or parent. Such love is loyal, platonic and usually unconditional. Then there is the Agape love which is a selfless love. With Agape love one may not feel loving towards someone even though they show them love, which is not hypocritical, but supreme, because it’s putting love in action in order to spawn the feelings of love.

Our society typically interprets love as the romantic type therefore it’s really no wonder why people are afraid to verbalize their feelings or that occasionally individuals take a friendship or family connection to a forbidden level.

So often we are actually lonely when we feel the most unloved, but such feelings deceive. We are all loved, by family, friends and most importantly our creator. The best way to overcome loneliness is refocus your energy on others by volunteering at your church. Love exists in the unity of community. Those who are home-bound can reach out to others by becoming a pen pal to a prisoner or an earthly guardian angel to a youth.