Love is one of the most precious things in this world – nobody can argue against that. Even if you are currently heartbroken and disappointed, I know that deep down, you’re perfectly aware that the value of love is great and magnificent.
Love is not always simple, but it is splendid and glorious. It’s the most intense feeling in the world, and whether you like to admit it or not, it’s one of the essential parts of human life.
Let’s just be clear about one thing: I’m not talking about romantic love here only. I’m talking about all the other loving relationships in your life – they’re all built on pure love, aren’t they?
So, what’s the power of love? What makes it so special? What is the value of love, and what are its benefits?
What Is Love?
There is more than one definition of love. Some people say that love is your ability to put someone else’s well-being in front of your own, while others define it as a powerful feeling of attachment to another person.
Either way, the fact is that the concept of love is not one feeling only. Instead, it’s a range of emotions that give you pleasure. At least, that’s how love should make you feel – positive and good about yourself.
If it hurts, it isn’t love
What I want for you to always keep in mind is that love doesn’t hurt – loving the wrong person does.
We’ve all been there: we’ve loved someone and ended up feeling lousy or heartbroken because of it. Maybe you fell in love with someone who was forbidden, or the person you gave your heart to didn’t love you back, which eventually brought you misery.
But real love shouldn’t make you feel like that. In fact, true love doesn’t change you, it doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself, it doesn’t judge, and it certainly isn’t the cause of your tears.
Of course, each one of these things happens because you mistake other emotions for love. To be exact, a lot of the time, your feelings can be traced back to your ego, not your heart. And when that happens, you’re stuck with these consequences.
You see, the true value of love has nothing to do with jealousy, pride, insecurities, and fears. Those are all the emotions fed by your ego.
You hold on to anxiety, revenge, pride, energy and think they’re all encompassed in love. But they’re not. And you know why?
Because love is pure and perfect, it dignifies your soul and ennobles your entire personality – it doesn’t bring any darkness and negativity to the table.
What Is The Moral Value Of Love?
Among other things, love teaches you a lot about morals – principles that help you differentiate right from wrong. Some of the basic moral values are truthfulness, honesty, integrity, appreciation, compromise… And love contains all of them.
When you love someone, you won’t lie to them, will you? Instead, you’ll do your best to be as honest and truthful as possible.
Your actions will follow your words because the last thing you want is to disappoint them in any way possible. You’ll be honorable, regardless if your love interest is next to you at a given moment or not.
The same goes for appreciating the one you love. You’ll deeply admire all the sacrifices this person has made for your sake. And naturally, you’ll return the favor as the consequence of valuing what you have.
Once you grow to love someone, you begin adopting each one of these core values (and many more). Love simply inspires you to be better, and it increases your sense of all of these principles.
How many times have you heard about someone who suddenly became kinder to the world once they fell in love? How many examples do you know of people who turned into honest, honorable, and trustworthy individuals after love inspired them to be better?
You see, if you’ve never loved or were loved, you haven’t had the chance to learn about these core values. Opening your heart to love and feeling that someone cares about you are the only two things that can teach you this.
Why Is Love An Important Value?
Now, you probably understand why love is perhaps the most important value of them all – because it is a combination of all other core values.
Whether we like to admit it or not, love is crucial for all of us. You could be heartbroken or hurt at the moment, so maybe you’ll say you’ve given up on love. But both of us know that this is far from the truth.
No matter how emotionally unavailable you are at the moment, that will change over time. You don’t have to consciously want it, but sooner or later, you’ll realize that love is the most significant thing in the world.
It’s more important than money, social status, and every other temporary satisfaction. Unconditional love is what makes a human life complete – it’s the only value that fulfills your entire being.
Surprising Benefits Of Love
There are numerous benefits to love, starting with those that do good for your physical health, including the fact that it gives you the greatest chance for self-improvement and finally ending with numerous benefits for your mental health.
Primal human instinct
Love is one of the primal human instincts. As complicated as it can be, it’s a basic emotion that goes hand in hand with anger and fear.
At their core, people are quite similar to animals. Just like them, we all have a set of instincts that keep us alive and make our lives much more bearable.
When you think of these instincts, the first thing that comes to mind is survival. In this case, you’re talking about self-preservation instincts. Simply put, they keep you away from danger, prevent you from hurting yourself, and also keep you safe from others.
Pain is a result of this survival instinct. As uncomfortable as it might be, it actually does you much good. Pain tells you which part of your body is hurt and helps you protect that part until you heal.
The next instinct is connected with preserving the species. As soon as you reach puberty, you have the desire for intercourse – otherwise, our species would go extinct.
In a way, love can be connected to this one. After all, you want to sleep with the person you’re romantically in love with, don’t you?
Nevertheless, love is mostly a part of the third group of instincts: the social ones. It’s connected to your desire for belonging as well as the desire for social contact with other people.
That’s what love is all about – you want to be in touch with the people you care for deeply. And what about romantic love?
Well, it’s the perfect combo of these two primal instincts. When you’re in love with someone, you want to have intercourse with them, but you also want to have other types of contact with them, don’t you?
Self-discovery
Another benefit of love is the fact that it leads you down the path of self-discovery. This is the emotion that brings out the best in you – the emotion that inspires you to be your true self.
When you fall in love, you learn a lot about yourself. Sometimes, it helps you discover things even you didn’t know about yourself.
Were you aware that you could be so generous and kind before you started loving someone? Did you know how much you can take? Could you even imagine, up to this point, sacrificing something for someone else’s good?
I guess not. Well, love helped you figure all of this out.
The same way you’re getting to know the other person while you’re growing to love them, you’re also getting a chance to meet yourself. You’re uncovering your personality layer by layer, including the ones you never dreamt of having.
Most importantly: love towards others brings you closer to self-love. Once you see that someone else cares for you, you understand that you’re loveable.
Once you hear someone tell you, “I love you,” you have the need to say those magic words to yourself as well. Finally, you start taking care of yourself because you see you’re worth it.
Health benefits
There is no doubt about one thing: the power of love benefits your physical and mental health. I’m sure you knew about the latter, but maybe you weren’t familiar with the fact that it really does influence your brain in the most positive way ever.
According to some studies, people who love and are loved in return have less trouble with high blood pressure – and we all know how dangerous that can be. You feel calmer next to someone you care for, so, naturally, your heart rhythm slows down.
Also, love is proven to be a natural pain remedy. There really is something about holding your loved one’s hand when you’re experiencing physical pain. In fact, their touch alone makes the area of the brain responsible for pain less responsive.
Let’s talk about the physiological effects. I’m sure you’ve heard about oxytocin, or what some like to call the love hormone.
Oxytocin is released into your brain when you’re in love, when you cuddle with someone, or when you’re sleeping with the person you care about. Basically, it’s one of the hormones that make you happier.
It’s a proven fact that people in love handle stressful situations better, are less prone to anxiety, and don’t have trouble chasing their fears away. Also, your loved ones can help you cope with depression much more effectively than you can by yourself.
Come on, you’ve loved before, and you know exactly what I’m talking about. How many times have you been paralyzed by fear? But then, all of a sudden, the person you love tells you that everything will be okay.
And even though you’re perfectly aware that they don’t have a magic wand that can make your life perfect, somehow, you start to feel calmer. You’re not alone, and you’re not scared of anything as long as you have them to hold your hand.
When this person is around you, you feel like the two of you can confront everyone and everything that appears on your way. You get this incredible strength and inner power that you immediately start feeling undefeatable.
Motivation
Love motivates you to do and be better. If you’ve ever lost your will to live, the people you care about (and who care about you in return) will give you just the push you need.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not, under any circumstances, claiming that the person you love will make you feel like you’re not good enough. In fact, they’ll love who you are.
They won’t put any effort into changing you, nor will they try turning you into someone you’re not. But you’ll be the one who will get the desire to engage in serious self-improvement.
You’ll start seeing your own flaws – but not in terms of judging yourself or putting the person you once were down. You’ll just begin to notice your imperfections, and you’ll try hard to find ways to become the best possible version of yourself.
All of a sudden, you’ll have the energy to turn your life upside down. Remember how you’ve been planning to hit the gym for the last hundred Mondays? Or how you couldn’t get yourself to take that final exam that’s been bugging you for years?
In fact, this motivation doesn’t necessarily have to be connected to something big. If love helps you get up in the morning with more ease every day – it’s more than enough.
But love will bring you much more. Trust me: it’s the force that pushes you. The force that makes you feel like you could move mountains with your bare hands.
It’s the force that gives you the energy you never knew was even possible. The force that encourages you and gives you inspiration for every new day that comes.
It feels good
Finally, it’s pretty plain and simple: love makes you feel good. It makes you a happier person in the world. It makes you ecstatic and content about your own life.
It brings you joy, and it puts a smile on your face. It makes you feel like you’re about to fly.
Love makes you feel safe and protected. It brings you optimism and gives you hope that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
Why is this so? Well, according to science, love releases another hormone into your brain – a hormone called dopamine. Dopamine is also known as “the happiness hormone” – the one that awakens all of these positive emotions inside of you.
Well, even if this is the only real value of love, wouldn’t it be more than enough?
What Are The Types Of Love?
There is more than one kind of love – there is romantic love, friend love, sibling love, parents’ love…
When someone says love, most of us think about romance.
But that doesn’t have to be the case because you don’t love all the people in your life in the same way. You have different loving relationships with your family members, friends, coworkers, cousins… and you have intense feelings for each one of these people.
Let’s try and compare the love you feel for your life partner and the one you feel for your parents. You can’t, can you?
What Are The Ancient Greek Types Of Love?
According to the ancient Greeks, what we today know as love could be classified into 8 subgroups:
– Philia (love between friends and family members)
– Pragma (longstanding love that endured throughout many years and even more challenges)
– Eros (romantic love)
– Storge (natural affection)
– Mania (obsessive love)
– Ludus (playful love – more similar to the feeling of being in love)
– Philautia (self-love)
– Agape (unconditional love)
Each one of these words described a different type of feeling and represented a concept for itself.
But trust me when I tell you that this classification is not as outdated as you might think. In fact, it can still be applied to modern love as well.
How Is Love Measured?
If someone asked you if you loved your sister or brother more – you couldn’t give them an answer. That is because you probably love them with the same intensity, but you experience different types of affection.
Therefore, just because you don’t have a happy love life doesn’t mean you’re deprived of love. If you ever loved just one human being and were loved by that person (whoever they are) in return – you know exactly how amazing and extraordinary this feeling is.
What Encompasses Love?
There is no doubt about one thing: there is more than one aspect of love. You’re perfectly aware that true love means respect, tolerance, compassion, acceptance, kindness, appreciation, devotion, and so on…
Kindness
There is no love without kindness. You can’t say that you love someone if you don’t treat them with generosity and consideration.
There is no point in sharing your life with another person if you don’t help them out and give them a hand when they need you. Forget about who’ll take advantage of whom here.
If we’re talking about unconditional love, both you and your life partner give the approximately same amount of kindness. There is no such thing as returning the favor or measuring who did more.
Acceptance
The next aspect of love is complete acceptance. Don’t get me wrong: you’re allowed not to like some things about the person you love – after all, nobody is perfect.
Nevertheless, when your heart chooses them, your brain must follow. That means that you’re perfectly aware of their imperfections and love them because of them.
Let’s look at things from this point of view. Your loved one possesses a habit or a behavior pattern that annoys the hell out of you.
In fact, you’re positive that they would be completely flawless without this little thing. But don’t be so sure.
Try imagining them without this personality trait. All of a sudden, they’re not the same person you’ve grown to love, are they?
Trust me when I tell you that your love can’t change anyone who doesn’t want to be changed. It’s one thing if someone gets inspired by your relationship and wants to improve.
Nevertheless, forcing someone to be a person they’re not never works out. Basically, you have two possible scenarios here.
You’ll either waste a lot of time trying to change them, and you’ll end up accomplishing nothing. Or they’ll do their best to change to please you and will end up frustrated and resenting you.
Either way, you don’t love the person whose essence you hope to change. You love the idea of them.
This is especially true when it comes to romantic lovers. People tend to fall in love with potential: they grow to love everything the person next to them might become.
Commitment
Here is another crucial aspect of valuing love – one that has different meanings in different relationships. When it comes to romantic relationships, loving your life partner is a commitment.
The moment you say “I love you” or decide to put a label on your relationship – you’re expected to be faithful and loyal.
But what does commitment mean in other relationships? Well, basically, it’s a promise that you won’t leave the moment things get rough.
It’s a vow that you’ll remain devoted to this relationship, no matter what happens. It’s taking responsibility and that you’re in the relationship all the way – without holding any parts of yourself back.
Compassion
You can’t be happy if someone you love is miserable. No, I’m not saying that this is how you should feel or that your misery will help them with theirs – it’s just how things roll.
Compassion is an inevitable part of real love. You simply grow the ability to feel whatever the other person is feeling.
You recognize their every emotion without them having to say a word. And the best part is that you don’t just sit there, doing nothing.
Instead, you put all of your efforts into making your loved one feel better. And at the end of the day – you succeed. Because that’s what the power of love is all about.
Respect
Finally, there is no love without respect. Trust me – if you’re disrespected in your relationship – the other person doesn’t love you enough.
I’m not saying that you have to nod your head in agreement with everything your loved one says or does. But sometimes, just agree to disagree.
First and foremost, you always have to respect the other person’s efforts. You have to respect their core values (even if they differ from yours), their boundaries, personal space and time, their wishes, and their opinions.
Everything besides this is not love – it’s just your ego talking.
Once again, this is especially important in romantic relationships. Trust me: whoever doesn’t respect you doesn’t deserve a place in your life, and they certainly don’t love you.
Final Thoughts:
Did you get your hope back after reminding yourself of the value of love? Are you ready to admit that it’s the most precious thing ever?
Valuing love doesn’t make you a hopeless romantic. It just means that you’re aware of all of its beauty and that you’re ready to welcome it into your life.
So please, choose to love and let others love you. You’ll thank me later – once you see that it was worth it.