A human’s first experience with affection begins at birth. From there, throughout their entire life, they learn to love from everything around them. This is absolutely necessary, as learning to love is an important part of integrating into society. However, this can become problematic. While one needs to be properly educated on how to love, it is entirely possible that they could instead learn how to love poorly. Western culture is plagued with so many unrealistic expectations of love, resulting in a never-ending search for long lasting, genuine love. These expectations of what love is supposed to be like are inundating today’s world and filling individuals’ minds with exceptionally high standards, making it nearly impossible for one to find a love where they are not left feeling disappointed. This ideal love gets incorporated into personal relationships, giving false hope to anyone that will allow it. To love someone has the ability to leave a person with extreme vulnerability. When love fails, this can potentially result in pain, affliction, and heartache. If this is true, why do people love?
People love because they need to feel at home in the world. People love with the hope to find everlasting grounding for their life, because it is what society has told them they need to do in order to survive in this crazy world. There exists so many different ways people can love, but love derived from anything other than self-love will not last. The thought that one needs someone or something external to feel grounded in this world is a vulnerable state of mind to have. However, this thought of needing someone else exists only because it is what society has taught every individual to fantasize about. Through social media, novels, fairytales passed down to our children, and numerous other plagued sources, Western society has it in its mind that there is an unconditional, ideal love that exists in the world. The problem with this love is that in practice it cannot meet all of these expectations that society has deemed of it.
The idea in Western culture that two people are made to be soul mates creates a serious hindrance in our society. It is entirely possible that one can become unknowingly obsessed with this idea. Nothing else would seem to matter to them anymore, besides the single individual that they have put all of their energy into trying to foster a relationship with. When people focus too much on another person, they can lose their own experience of “self-love” because they are constantly obsessing over someone else and not allowing time to focus on themselves. Even worse, when people don't find their "soul mate" in the time that society has deemed appropriate, it leaves them wondering whether or not something is wrong with the way they try to love. It is true that love makes a person vulnerable, even though the need to feel ontologically rooted is one of a person’s highest necessities. Many are scared to lose the one they love, and as they become more and more attached to a single person, it can become impossible for them to grasp what life would be like without them. The contemporary cultural ideal of love includes the idea that two people are meant to be with one another forever, which ultimately puts too many unrealistic expectations on how people should love. This cultural obsession is present in many different forms in society and causes individuals to fascinate over the thought that in order to be “in love,” they must find the one person, and one person only, who makes them feel complete.
This leads me to the question, what happened to loving ourselves first? We need to know that we are absolutely, entirely enough for this world. We need to let go of the idea that we must have someone else who completes us. We are capable of loving and being loved without this other person that we are all seemingly so destined to find. Loving ourselves first is what is most important for our spirit, mind, and body, so why not start putting our energy into focusing on ourselves? No matter what ideas Western society chooses to fill our minds with, expressing its thoughts about how we should love, let us not question whether or not we are enough for this world. Each and every one of us has a heart that is without question, wholly capable of being just the right amount.
