Dr. Page
English 111
March 4, 2013 Real Love
I love you. Those three little words mean so many different things to different people. But what is real love? Can anyone really define it? The definition of love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. That definition does not go in depth enough for the effects of love, for how love makes you feel or how it makes a person act. Real love is selfless, everlasting and blind. Real love does not gloat, it’s never proud and it will never end. Real love is blinding to the point that we know the truth deep down but because of love we refuse to see it. Love can be wonderful and painful at the same time. It is something that we all yearn to have, something we all search for. Love is said to be abstract but we feel it so deep, so powerful that sometimes we feel as if we can reach out, grab it and hold on to it.
One of the components of love is being selfless. Being selfless involves putting a loved one’s needs and wants ahead of your own, you going without just so that they can go with. We see it every day. You know when you see a couple in the movie theatre headed towards the chick flick that has just been released. The girlfriend is so excited with her drink and popcorn in her hand and when she’s not paying attention you can see a look of pure boredom and dread on the boyfriends face. He is there just because she wants to be there, if it was up to him they would be seeing the latest Bruce Willis movie but because she wants to see the newest romantic comedy with Jennifer Aniston that is what they go to see. That is a selfless act. Even though it’s the simplest of acts the boyfriend sitting through that two hour long movie is showing the girlfriend that he is willing to do whatever makes her happy even if it makes him want to fall asleep. Being selfless also means sacrificing. The son who saves up his allowance for six whole months just get his mom the diamond earrings she wanted for her birthday. Even though the newest Nintendo game system has just been released, he walks right on by the game stop store and straight in to a Macy’s to get those earrings for his mom. He sacrifices hours of gaming and reaching the twentieth level on halo just to see his mother’s smile and excitement after getting those earrings. That is enough for him. That smile satisfies him enough that he can wait just a few more weeks for that new game system. What the boyfriend and the son have in common is that their actions are driven by love. They are both willing to sacrifice and show selflessness to the ones that they love without expecting anything in return.
The second component of love is that it is everlasting, loving someone unconditionally no matter the circumstance. The woman who is married to the big tycoon who is worth 1.5 billion dollars and has just lost everything, his job, house, money and friends because of some kind of scandal that is all over the news, decides to stay by his side. Even though when she first met him he took her out on the most expensive dates, gave her the best of everything to the point that she has gotten accustomed to a lavish life, she still stays. They went from a penthouse apartment in Manhattan, to a one bedroom apartment in hell’s kitchen with no heat and she’s still there. The wife is still showing him the same kind of love that she has shown him for the last twenty years, still having his dinner waiting on the table when he gets home, still ironing his clothes and still holding him at night. From the outside looking in we look at things like this and think “oh she’s an idiot” or “I would be long gone” but what we do not realize is that her love for him is real. Unconditional, she was not in love with the money but with the man and even though the money is gone she is not, she is still happy because she has the man that she loves. No matter how much time passes real love never fades. The high school sweet hearts that were