I'm happy that after so many years, i still manage to keep one of my notes that i use in our church activities especially in Youth Camp. How I wish we were still together, i missed the Sunday Worship, Young People's Fellowship, Inter-Fellowship, Saturday practice (praise and worship and the special numbers) and yes, i missed my first baby-keyboards but guitar was my first love. Jong and I were planning to purchase a keyboards (for me) and guitar (for him) because he wanted to learn to play guitar and i will be able to teach Karlo to play the keyboards and guitar also. Right now, Karlo's attending harmonica lesson in their school and we're excited before the school ends he can show us what he learned.
Anyway, i would like to share one of my notes and hope you like it.
Enjoy reading!
REAL LOVE is more than a blinding flash of insight, a heart flutter and a tummy twitch.
Your heart has no brains!
Simple Infatuation - is often called a "crush" or "puppy love". It commonly strikes those in the early teens or younger. Usually the object of such infatuation is some higher idealized person who is some years older - a teacher, an uncle or aunt, a friend of the family, an actor or actress. Simple infatuation seldom last long. But when you have one, you may be greatly moved with emotions. Soon the fancy fades, and the person returns to reality. Such tender feelings, no matter how strong, are not enough for marriage.
Romantic Infatuation - is what most people mean when they speak of "romantic love". Unfortunately, they often drop "romantic" and just call it "love"which is most confusing. Romantic infatuation is the same as being "in love". Romantic infatuation is in fast a strange mix of sex and emotion - not genuine love at all. It will not of itself support a marriage like simple crush, romantic infatuation leads to idealizing the other person. The difference is that in romantic infatuation, these emotions may be much stronger and last longer. At times they may reach fever pitch. The persons affected are normally a few years older and near the same age. They are likely to have a much stronger sex interest in each other than is the case in puppy love.
If you're struck by romantic infatuation, you will likely be just as unrealistic and idealistic as the one who has a crush. Strong feelings are just not enough to support marriage or a long intimate, total relationship. Real love exist when your strong tender feelings for the other are balanced by reason and deep respect. You care just as much for the other person's welfare and fulfillment as you do for your own. Judgements about the person are quite objective and rational. The two of you have many values and ideas in common. You share similar goals and ideals. In short, you are matched as well as mated.
Emotions must warm reason, but reason must rule emotion. If you're infatuated, your emotions will be in charge. In real love, your reason is on the throne ruling your emotions. Sex is a deep biological drive that seeks some erotic expression. The popular view that romantic love alone is enough for marriage is a vicious myth. Impertinent proposal. Down with romantic love! Oh, one thing we can do is to stop spreading the romantic love lie. Romantic love can end as fast as it begins, we should stop leading people to think it will last forever. If it is mostly selfish, let's stop telling people it is not. If it is not the same thing as real love, let's start making that quite clear. It is dishonest to continue such deception. Confusion is to start saying what we mean.
How can you find out what your central value is? That's easy. Just write down all the things that are very important to you. Then ask yourself. "What's the very last thing in the world I'd be willing to give up?" The kind of life you will have will depend on the kind of life center you choose. A life devoted to seeking personal pleasure will be far different from one committed to the service of the others.
If your job does not excite or challenge you, you've sentenced yourself to long years of being bored and unhappy with it. "If you choose wisely your vocation, you'll never need a vacation". People should not be pressured into marriage/or marrying if they prefer to stay single. Who is the best person to team up with you for the rest of your life? Just think.
That will be the person with whom you plan to spend most of your adult years in the most intimate of all relationship. It is the person with whom you may concreate your children and share your life at every level. Choosing a mate is a decision to challenge your very best judgement. A wrong choice can spell tragedy not only for you and your spouse, but also for your families and friends. It will be even more tragic if you have children. The surest way to avoid that tragedy is to be very careful in choosing your life mate in the first place. A marriage must have two qualities, if it is to be pronounced as a success by the general public. It must be happy and it must be permanent, real love is present to bring joy and fulfillment to both of them.
The marriage should be happy. Many who in their wedding vows agreed to swear by their commitment soon find that they are swearing at it. They become disillusional, dissatisfied and divorced. Their marriages move from rapture to rapture. Early marriages are brought on by pregnancy. "Forced marriage" - a very high risk of failure. Immature in age is likely to be immature in emotions as well. Often object to early marriages, except in some cases where the young woman is pregnant. Give their reluctant consent. Immaturity of the couple seems to be matched by the immaturity of their parents. Tends to interfere with the plans for continuing the education of the bread winner. Teenagers hurry into marriage as an escape. Some women may engage in what has been called the "flight into intimacy". That is, they retreat into marriage because they are afraid to go it alone in a complex, tough world.
Teen marriage failure may become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. They may set out to prove to themselves and others that their decision to marry young was a smart one. They may get stubborn and refuse to give up. When in doubt, don't. When in doubt, delay! Take your time-lots of time. Tread water for awhile. See what the passing of time does to your relationship. You will have to work harder to make sure yours is a good marriage. And you will have to be even more careful than most people to make sure that your mate choice is a good one.
The word love has been used to describe all kinds of quite different things. Compare the patient devotion Hosea had for his undeserving wife to the "lust at first sight" feelings displayed by King David. The single word love to describe such diverse human emotions has to be troublesome. You deserve a better break. Everyone of us needs a least one other person who really cares about us. We need someone who shares our hopes and joys, our sorrows and concerns. We need someone who honestly wants us to be our whole selves, to be fully fulfilled. We need/want someone to cry when we die and really mean it. We need to give love. We need to have some other person on whom we can lavish our own caring and sharing.
Human need for love and companionship helps explain why youth in every generation cling doggedly to the hope of finding some loving and lovable life mate. Idealized, and so is the situation the couple find themselves in. Since the ideals they dream about cannot become real, this brings on frustration. That leads in turn to a loss of heart and morale, which then ends in despair. That's a far cry from what the media myth dream is supposed to be life.
Sensual love -This is sexual desire.
Yearning for unity - a drive to unite with something attractive
Erotic - passion and sex
Eros - love for God "falling in love"
Brotherly love - shared by good friends and companions. It is a close feeling that develops when two person have many things in common (philia love)
Family affection - parents/children
Self-giving love - agape love, love with Jesus, self-giving devotion to others regardless of their merits.
Real love includes all five
1. Strong sex interest
2. Respect and admiration
3. Friendship and fellowship
4. Affection
5. Self-giving devotion
Powerful pull to passion think that if you have strong sexual feelings toward another person,
you must surely be in love, you may feel passionate toward a person you've not met.
Gnawing need for nearness sex interest, so it is with the deep desire to be together.
It can be present in infatuation just as in love. Want to be together almost all the time.
If you are parted for even a few hours you will have a feelings of emptiness, a deep longing
for each other. Funny feeling. Getting strange feelings "in the middle", when you see or
think about another person is not in itself a valid clue.
3 Precautions
1. The order is not important
2. No clue can stand alone
3. One sided love won't work
Infatuated - Your main interest is likely to be the other person's physical equipment, if
you truly love someone,your interest is in him or her total personality. You're attracted
to the whole person. It's not just what shows on the surface, but also what's beneath
the surface.
Real love arms you with x-ray vision - you can see far more about the one you love than what first meets the eye. And that's all to the good. A marriage based only on sex attraction will last no more than three to five years. If it's love, many or most qualities
of the person - and the relationship - attracts you. Two person who are psychological opposites may attract and have a good marriage. Social opposites almost never do. a. roots b. value
c. children d. money e. sex roles f. where and how to live g. main interest h. investment in
your future i. concepts of marriage j. major goals and hopes for the future.
Real love requires that you know and like the person's whole self. You need to understand the
full array of complex traits that lie hidden deep with in the person. Love starts slowly.
The longer the period of courtship and engagement, the better the chances for success in a
marriage. There is no substitute for passing the test of time. A year is better than six months.
Two years are better than one. Three years are better than two, four better than three, five better
than four. The longer the courtship, the better your chances for good marriage. You can feel very lonesome living alone it's true. But can also feel lonely and miserable living with your mate if you're not well matched. Better to stay single than to live in a marital hell.A good, long period of courtship will help you be sure that it's the real thing. Be sure you pass that all important "test of time". The path of true love never runs smoothly.
In an infatuation, a couple's interest in each other comes and goes. The roots of such a relationship
are too thin to nourish it for long. The soil is too shallow to keep your interest in each other strong
at all times, so your feelings are not consistent. The relationship tends to even out in real love.
It becomes more and more consistent. You can depend on your interest in each other staying pretty much
the same over a long period of time. You feel comfortable with it and with each other. Don't reach the peak of excitement so prevalent in infatuation, plunge to the depths. In real love there will be no problems
to iron out, no hardships to work around, especially in the early stages of your courtship. As real love
grows, you stabilize your feelings and actions toward each other. You learn to resolve tensions between you.
Mature love is evenly balanced and temperate. Romantic love is not an extreme, but a way of life.
Love is a kind of comfortable "warm fuzzy". Romantic infatuations, not love that has a disorganizing
and desttructive effect on your personality. Infatuation makes you less effective, less efficient,
less yourself. If you let yourself get so involved with someone that "nothing matters" except your romance.
You could be exploited and deeply hurt. Real love is responsible and glad to assume the consequences of mutual
acts. Infatuation, on the other hand, tends to dodge responsibility.
Real love will have an organizing and a constructive effect on your personality. Love is associated with
feelings of self-confidence, trust and security makes an effort to be more deserving of the beloved.
Real love will have an organizing and constructive on your personality it stops the same way, it starts
fast and for good reason. Begin to have quarrels, conflicts, even fights and doubts about your love
soon to break up.
May not end all that fast - sigh over his or her picture, a few weekend before you start to get over it.
"What did i see in him/her anyway?"
You must grow together and become a unit.
If you've loved and lost, you have not been sentenced to being a single the rest of your life.
There is no such thing as a "one and only", although after you're married it's a good plan not to keep
looking over your shoulder at others. Once wed, just assume your mate is your one and only - for keeps.
