If it was up to me I would get rid of LOVE from the dictionary. I would even go so far as to completely remove it from our vocabulary. And to go ever further I would imprison anyone who uttered the word love from their mouth.
I would then replace it with a different four letter word. One that also begins with “L”. But this word would be easier to understand and would not cause so much confusion in your life.
I am confident that replacing the word “LOVE” with “LIKE” ninety-nine percent of the frustration, games and drama would disappear in your life, especially your relationships.
Think about it. How many individuals invest their time and energy into sinking relationships and then turn around and blame it on love?
How many individuals put up with being lied to, dishonored, disrespected and cheated on and then use love as a justification as to why it is ok to stay?
I have seen more people than I could ever count stay months , years and even decades in unhappy and unfulfilling relationships. And then these individuals say they do it because of love.
I don’t know about you but if it came to being happy and liking someone and being miserable and being in love I’m gonna pick like and happy every time.
Now before you go chastising me and my outlook on me being an insensitive, unfeeling man , let me assure you that I am happily married and I love my wife and my children so much that I would willingly lay down my life for them at any moment.
But that is because I know understand what love really is. I now understand that liking the person you are with is just as important, if not more important than loving them.
But I didn’t always see it this way.
There was a time, many years ago , where I stayed in an unhappy and unfulfilling relationship. For three years I stayed in a relationship where I was miserable because of love, or what I thought was love.
At the time my ex-fiance and I very much loved and cared about each other. In fact we cared about each other so much we tried for three years to make a relationship work that we should have never even started. Because the truth is we were completely wrong for each other.
Yes, there were some things we had in common and there were some good times we shared while we were together, but at the end of the day we were like fire and gasoline, great on our own but dangerous when put together.
We both stayed and tried our hardest to make the relationship work, but no matter how what we did we could not make each other happy.
But we continued to stay because we loved each other. Neither of us wanted to hurt the other person. What we didn’t realize is that we were hurting ourselves the most.
My takeaway from that relationship was that if I was going to spend the rest of my life with someone, it was real important that I liked that person as much as I loved them.
That is why I am on a crusade to remove “LOVE” from the dictionary. I believe all of the confusion will disappear. I believe you will be able to see things more clearly. I think you will be able to make your choices and decisions and without second guessing yourself.
There will be no more vacillating. No more going back and forth revisiting toxic relationships.
Instead of making choices and decisions which you will look back on with regret you will have the skills and tools to make the right choice for the right reason, right from the start.
Because you will no longer be able to go back and use love as an excuse.
As the old song goes, “sometimes love just ain’t enough”.
Written by Joe A.
