No good thing happens easy, it takes conscious effort and time invested to make it real. So it is the same for love, True Love is a choice. Someone once told me this, wise words that I never forgot and hold it very dear to me. A relationship is made out of 80% commitment and 20% emotion.
80% Commitment and 20% Emotion
The younger me indulged with too much k-drama influenced by it’s unrealistic and unhealthy love stories. I too, wanted the “relationships” depicted on screen, a relationship that can give me the greatest highs. A high like that, in reality, comes with a price tag, a costly one at that. In order, to reach the highest highs, one will need to have experienced the lowest lows. Of which the frequency of the lows tend to be can be > high. It is a vicious cycle. Emotional turmoils that keeps the couple trapped in a constant stagnation. The unconscious desire in chasing for a high, becomes a unconscious self-fulling prophesy. The root cause for toxic relationships, are compounded by these unconscious accumulated choices.
Lessons that only hindsight can give, I would not have traded the pain and experience for less. The recurring aftermath waves of pain was the constant reminders to reevaluate the the choices made and they were crucial turning points in my life.
Love is a Choice
I have come to realize that true love is a choice. Love isn’t an emotional feeling, it is as logical as it can get. It is easy to feel like you are falling in love, but losing that feeling is just as easy. Relationships require hard work and choosing love as a daily choice is much more beautiful than a mere euphoric feeling. Learning that some fall in love with the concept of being in love, without loving the person. Falling in love with the idea of love. Being in love with the abstract idea of attaining the perfect life also means getting married and having kids.
We first meet, we fall in love
We first meet, we fall in love. We don’t choose who we fall in love with. The feeling of euphoria slowly fades away, and life happens. It is no longer spontaneous but it becomes routine. We learn our strengths and our flaws. We see the best and the worst. We see how perfectly imperfect we are. We learn our pasts, and the demons we can’t let go. We are weird, we are quirky, We smell the pleasant and the stinky. We learn we have different habits, weaknesses and flaws. We know discover each other and the aura of mystery disappears. Sooner or later, the cupid spell wears off. That, and the feeling of being in love, slowly fades away.
Do we give up?
When we reach this stage, there are 2 ways to deal with this: 1. Give up, break up and start the search again for the new ideal person 2. Learn to compromise, accept imperfections, improve ourselves positively and constructively to be a better version of ourselves for each other
Feelings are fleeting, No one wants to talk about how feelings fade, that it takes work to keep feelings alive, and a relationship intact. To know that staying in love, is a deliberate choice. Staying in love under the Fundamentals of Love.
Love is Commitment
Just because we don’t feel the same when we first started out, doesn’t mean we stop loving someone. That is when we learn, that love is more than a feeling, we learn that love is commitment. To love each other, is a choice we have to make daily. It is a intentional and conscious decision to choose to love each other for better and for worst.
Emotions are fleeting and transient. It takes more than emotion for true love to exists. It takes hard work for relationships to be genuine, consistent and lasting.
Will you choose love today?
Those who choose love, finds love. Those who don’t, will seek it for the rest of their lives. We choose who we want our soulmates, the love of our life to be. And we both have to choose it together.
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Written By Michelle Kuan
Her blog : www.mishiekuan.wordpress
Instagram : @mishiekuan
Love is a choice not a feeling
