What is love?
Thursday, June 19th, 2008by Sherry Jackson
Love can be a very subjective and confusing subject for a lot of people. Two different people will give two different meanings to love. Love can be seen as respect or trust or a combination of both. It can make people happy and it can make people suffer. Many people would agree that love causes a range of emotions.
People filter everything they experience and it allows them to have different perceptions on different experiences. This is why the perception of love is different for different people. We can now talk about the importance of love in our lives.
Studies conducted in the 1950s by Harry Harlow came to the result that humans need to experience the feeling of being loved to have a steady and healthy life. He came to this conclusion after undertaking psychological tests on people in relationships and people in isolation.
Moreover, Maslow suggested a hierarchy of needs for humans and love is very close to the top after food, water and shelter. This backs up the theory suggested by Harry Harlow.
In the basic structure of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, there is a core component that lays the foundation that we all have “social needs”. It has been concluded that individuals must experience some level of an emotional relationship that involves friendship, physical and emotional intimacy, communication with others that is positive in nature, and basic love.
Love allows us to feel as if we “belong” - that we have a special place in not only the world as a whole, but in the world of another and our own world. When we love, and that love is returned, we experience a sense of acceptance. Those that fail to experience love firsthand may suffer through many different negative consequences.
Some of the emotional and psychological problems associated with the experience of not being loved are as follows:
1. Some people may feel lonely and isolated. This can vary for different areas of life. People may feel lonely at work or at home. It is different for different people.
2. Social anxiety as a result of not feeling accepted.
3. The collective result may result in depression.
4. Depression and negative thoughts may in some cases lead to suicidal tendencies. In some rare cases, the thoughts are followed by action.
In conclusion, it can be said that love is quite complex. It is almost a necessity of life and it should be experienced by all people. Love is the feeling of being totally accepted by another person and being totally receptive of them in return. It is the process of looking for the best in another person and accept them as they are.
I am not claiming to be love expert but I run the site love calculator for fun comparisons of names and their matches. It is not just another love calculator.