Twitter
RSSOn Love & Pride
Apr 23
When you love something, you want to be around it. You enjoy its presence. You are proud of it.
You have to be able to admit that the thing you love is not perfect. You have to be able to say, “Well, I love this, and because I love this enough to make it better, there are some things I suggest be done to help it.” Nothing is perfect. Every loved thing and every loved one you have will have some sort of flaw. It will fail you once in a while. Can you cope with that? If you can cope with that and bounce back and love it the next day, then you truly love and you do not just like. Is your love blind or is it with reason? Blind love and blind pride are not forms of true love; they are forms of useless following; forms of stupidity. You need to have concrete reasons to love and concrete things to love about something.
Being proud of something does not mean you have to always think it is right. Pride does not ask you to be a yes-man. Pride asks you to be able to say no when it counts, and no when it is the right answer. Pride does not mean you will love every part of what you do. Every job, profession, career, or person has something that you will not like. There is at least one thing about math that all math majors dislike. There are books that English majors hate. There are parts of Christianity that some Christians may not necessarily agree with, question, or interpret differently than someone else. This is normal; this is human.
People who truly love work to better the thing they love, and to better themselves at the same time. Love requires a bit of change, but it also requires that the parties accept the other person for who (s)he is. You cannot change the lover into someone else. You cannot change the thing you love into something completely different. Love is about us; it is not about you, and it is not about me. Making you happy should make me happy, and making me happy should make you happy. It may not do this all the time, but it should trigger this feeling every so often.
If you love something, you will admit its faults, but stand behind it in the end, because the positives outweigh the negatives. Is there something that you feel this way about?
May 23, 2007 @ 15:38:40
Jason, the words you have written in this post are so strong and sincere. Everything you have said from start to finish is so deep, inspirational and true! You are indeed wise beyond your years. When reading what you wrote I was forced to not only reflect on my relationships but to question the real meaning of love and pride in its entirety. A lot of times it is hard to conceptualize what true love is due to the fact many times society depicts love as a conditional, ephemeral, feeling of attraction that is easily angered, jealous, and selfish. Not only does society, many times depict love in this way; it attempts to teach people that it is right to love and have pride in this way. Scripture, however, teaches us the exact opposite. Keem is right! You have certainly hit the nail on the head. Your post illustrates the beauty of what love is, what love between two people should become, and where pride stands in the mists of all that. Today you reminded me just how powerful love and pride can become when give the right ingredients. I love the post!
Apr 25, 2007 @ 10:14:07
Very insightful post J. You have hit the nail right on the head. Not many people twice your age understand this about love. Keep on writing young man. I like to read things like this.