The most unintelligent words to ever hurtle out of the lips of man and woman are “I cannot live without you.”
Unless you are a baby that has to be fed and mollycoddled, you can live without anyone. It’s your decision to make. You choose to be with someone because of circumstances and convenience. You are not forced to be with them because your heart feels that way. There is no such thing as ‘what the heart wants.’ The heart is just a blood-pumping organ composed of arteries, valves, atrium, auricles and ventricles. The only thing it wants to keep you alive. It doesn’t want you to be with Nyambura, Anyango, Mike or Brayo…..whatever the name of that person you are obsessed with is.
Ever since the days of Lancelot and Guinevere, people have been tuned to forsake their own intelligence and become victims of the imaginary illusion called love. They have been blocked from realizing that love isn’t something you find, it’s not something that hits you; it’s a choice you make.
Why do we see some people doing crazy stuff like committing suicide or even killing in the name of love? It’s because such people are blind to the fact that love is simply steered by decision-making. The truth about love’s illusionary nature is bitter and hard to digest for the uninitiated mind—but for the awakened mind this reality is itself liberating, helping one to sidestep one of life’s common pitfalls.
It is your mind that consciously decides that you love your partner, and it decides this every day for the rest of your shared life. When things are no longer working, or when the situation isn’t convinient you have to use your head as well and decide that you are better of without that person. Ideally, romantic love is only a collection of other factors. Love is primarily composed of lust, loyalty and tolerant understanding. Without lust, love becomes compassion, the kind you’d feel for others in a non-sexual way.
Since we were kids, playing Cha Baba na Cha Mama or kicking balls made out of plastic bags, we have been bombarded with propaganda that romantic love is the ultimate relationship ideal. Hollywood movies, cartoons, and storybooks all portray romantic love as the only real thing, but how much of that narrative has been a lie?
Before you know you’ve fallen in love, you have to first think you’re falling in love. And the difference between thinking you’re falling in love and actually falling in love comes down to your choices.
The people who end up having happy relationships or those who never get heartbroken are the one who realized long time ago that love is a choice. They know you cannot depend on feelings to make your relationship work. Feelings only last briefly or they keep fluctuating like stock market prices. You cannot depend on feelings to be happy. You have to depend on your mind, You have to depend on choices.
It’s a shame that we’re taught to believe that feelings alone should make things easier — that meeting the person who makes our hearts beat fast is enough to make us happy. Because if we were taught that love takes work — that it takes conscious effort and devotion — hearts wouldn’t break nearly as often as they do. The world is in shambles because people don’t understand what it means to love.
And unless you treat love as a choice and not a feeling — you’ll never be happy.
Using feelings and passion as your primary standards for mate-selection will ultimately lead to failure and maybe even personal catastrophe. For example, If you choose to marry someone just because you think you love them, yet they don’t even have a job and they prefer staying in the house all day, who will bear the burden of covering costs alone? How long do you think you will actually ‘love’ that person? How long will you tolerate coming home after work and finding them sitting comfortably on the couch, having done nothing all day? In the end, you will leave them thinking that you no longer love them but the truth is you just made a terrible choice in the first place and that choice is now damaging you.
Instead, practicality must be the order of the day. You must erase the lie of love from your head and logically evaluate any person you intend to be with by weighing their values, beliefs, ambition and sanity. Find a partner the same way you would find a new job or buy a new car. Think carefully if they’re good for you and be wary of anyone who also picks you based more on passion than practical matters.
It may sound cold to search for a bae like you would a business partner, but that is exactly how things should work. The day-to-day operations of a relationship or marriage are far more business and economics than love. An enduring relationship must be grounded on more than romantic love. It might be based on a more sedate, familiar love born of mutual respect for each other’s roles and duties.
Love is not a matter of butterflies in the stomach, but a matter of practicality. Do not allow yourself to be overpowered by a feeling that you think is love, losing all your mental faculties and common sense in the process. Make logical decisions that are likely to repel the rust of despise, instead of relying on emotion, which changes as readily as the direction of the wind.
Love can be a magnificent thing. It can be exhilarating. It can be miserable. It can raise you up and inspire you to improve yourself or it can muddy your mind and cause your ignominious disgrace. It all depends on whether you treat is as feeling or a choice.
