To be loved or to love

Every day we see another couple parting ways, another casualty of love. Two people now divided, both wandering lost, confused and alone. Two broken hearts seeking solace because of a dream shattered by foolishness, a couple fated to fail from the beginning. And yet this could have all been avoided.

Many of us fall prey to the impulse to seek self-serving love. But this motive often becomes the downfall of many romantic unions. We enter into relationships having only ourselves in mind.  The need to feel wanted, needed, appreciated and cared for becomes our reason for seeking romantic intimacy.

But a romantic union is much more than the sum of two people. Once joined, they are transformed into a whole that surpasses their individualities. We enter into relationships desiring to be loved. But this is a self-centered objective. And it defeats the purpose of the relationship, because this union should be about sharing, giving and caring.

For as long as we are driven by this need, we will never realize the fullness of a relationship. Rather, we should seek a romantic union because of the desire to love, and not just to be loved.

Those of us whose hearts have been broken may benefit from reflecting on our past relationships whether we sought romantic intimacy out of the need to be loved, because this may be the reason why these past relationships failed. Instead, when we do enter into a new relationship, we should seek to give rather than to receive. Only when we feel that we can love another person selflessly can we say that we are ready to enter into a new relationship. Only then can we truly claim that we are ready to love once more.