To Affect Love...

Love and Affection, are these two words one in the same? And how do they compare in different aspects of your life such as in a relationship, family setting and just in the everyday world? At first when Anthony gave me this topic I drew a blank. Not even a stick figure of what I really wanted to portray about this subject. As my mind started to spin and pick apart what these two words mean individually as well as how they intermingle with one another some light finally passed thru.

I guess I believe that “Affection” is the first step towards love. Then love is the combination of one’s emotional, mental, physical, spiritual attachment to another person. These days’ people are so scared of the “L” word that they often misrepresent it by using the word “Like”. But love requires build up of many years ( but not typical—love at first sight) that finally allow for the infusion of each other’s ego and the merging of the two individual psyche’s into one vibrant world. Love does not, in itself, allow a partition because that would mean destruction of two individuals. To “like” allows normal people like you and me to meet, mate, cohabitate, leave, forget, find another and carry on a cycle of experiences. “Love” does not. Love is a feeling; affection is the physical expression of it. The two can be combined, or separate… you can have love without expression/affection (which is truly a sad thing) and you can have affection without love. But to confuse things more, you can feel affection for someone you love but not necessarily love them.

If you truly love someone, wouldn’t you be willing to give up anything for them? Is that a fact or a myth? I know that love is about communication, dedication, and understanding and so much more along those lines but what about the promises that we make to our spouse, significant other, and our children? If someone promised you that they would never leave you, and do, does that count as betrayal or should you just accept it as a meaningless promise because no one knows what will happen in the future? If someone leaves you, should you chase them because you love them or do you expect them to chase you as a way to prove that they do in fact love you? I guess that just depends on what book you’re reading- If you’re reading the Bible it’s “until death do us part”…if you are reading a best-seller romance novel its probably until someone gets bored. What we are dealing with now is the fact that most people would rather bail than to stick with it through the rough stages. In a relationship, if you’re not willing to stick it out longer, forgive for anything or try a second time does that mean that you didn’t love that person with your everything? That you’re not as dedicated as you said. And what if that person leaves you? Since they decided to forfeit their commitment to you how do you make something work when the other person has given up on you so easily? I guess we don’t. Our minds and hearts play simultaneous tricks on us and we start to wonder if it is really worth it.

We do these same things in our careers. We think that just because everything is not “perfect” with our career that it’s the end of the world. Again, this is a relationship between not a spouse or significant other but your employer. A commitment to one another. The “love” is the job. The “affection” is the wage. I know, pretty clever of me huh…lol.

Love and affection is unpredictable and can fade easily. How does the quote go, “If you love something, set it free; if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was.” But also remember when we fail at anything do not throw away your dignity. And like I said in a previous blog….Failure is not in my dictionary!