In this quote from Robert Frost, he hints at the unconditionality of love? Oh the things we say we love in this life, but I think most of us just really like things a lot. The word love is used so much and seems to have lost much of the meaning that we all say it has. In our marriage vows we say we love each other until death do us part, but for most this really means I love you until you do something that doesn’t please me. We also say we love our friends and family, but we scold them for being exactly who they are. Most are just inexperienced humans trying to figuring out how this life works and what they really want from it. For many, “I love you” really means: “I like you a lot for now, until you upset me.”
Love in its pure state doesn’t require the loved to perform in order to be worthy or in order to receive. Love is a choice that we each must make in every moment when we place our attention on any subject in our lives. We choose an emotional position to be in and then we lean into it or we lean away from it when we interact. We can easily end up using life and all that we experience as the excuses for why we love or don’t love. What he said or she did can become our excuses or reasons for love or the lack of love we show each other. In essence, we open and close the door of love each time we get upset with them and deny them (and ourselves) the warm wonderful feelings of love. However, we tend to re-open those doors of love more easily with people we must interact with, but we shut the door permanently when we know we can get out of our attachments with them.
The world of “like” rather than “love” is where most people really live. Love is really a chosen entitlement rather than something someone must earn from us. Love can only be offered without the need of performance or reason, it is simply your personal permanent choice. If love must be earned then really you love what you wish to receive. Again, this means you love the conditions you have set up as your requirements rather than the person. This way of loving is very limited and always brings frustration and conflict into any relationship because none of us can always perform in ways that the world will deem worthy of love. But we can always love each other in spite of how we each behave. I am love. I am joy. I am so very good.
