fills their respective wine glasses,
but cannot drink the same glass of wine together,
share bread,
but cannot eat the same slice of bread.
must open your heart to the other party,
but it is not left to the other party for custody,
stand together,
but should not be too close to it.
—— Gibran
Picture source network (same below)
Before we get to the topic, it is necessary to understand a psychological concept—"self-boundary".
In "The Road of Few People - A Journey of Mind Maturity", Scott Parker tells us:
In the first seven months of the baby's birth, he cannot distinguish the boundary between himself and the outside world. When he was hungry, he thought the whole world was starving with him.
As the baby grows up slowly and his understanding and experience continue to increase, he will gradually realize that he is not the same as the world.
He realized that when he felt hungry, his mother might not come to feed him immediately.
So, his self-awareness began to appear. Whether this self-awareness can develop healthily depends on whether his relationship with his mother is harmonious.
When a baby realizes that his wish is his own, not the wish of the surrounding world, he can distinguish between himself and the outside world and recognize his own limitations. This kind of cognition is "self-boundary".
Before we understand what true love is, let’s figure out what true love is not.
Scott Parker pointed out:
Love that falls into love (i.e., love) cannot constitute love in the true sense.
This is because:
The love that falls into the love network will not last for too long. No matter who the person you love is, sooner or later we will crawl out of the love network. The dizzying feeling will disappear completely one day.
Falling into love means that a certain part of the boundaries of self suddenly collapses, making our self one with other people's self one.
We may have indescribable ecstasy, we may feel that love is extremely powerful, can conquer everything, and the future is infinitely bright.
However, we do not realize that this feeling is actually illusory and is often out of touch with reality.
This feeling is like a two-year-old child who thinks he can do everything.
Falling into love is actually a kind of degeneration of emotions and soul.
As time goes by, both parties who fall in love will realize in surprise and pain that they are not actually integrated with each other.
The desires, hobbies and ideas of each other are far apart. The situation seems difficult to change, and the gap seems impossible to shorten.
So, the two people's self-boundary re-closed and returned to two different individuals.
The hallucination is shattered, and you may face the situation of separation between the two.
Therefore, Scott Parker pointed out that
Falling into love is not an extension of the self-boundary, but a partial temporary collapse of the self-boundary.
Falling into love is not true love, it is just an illusion of love.
is the feeling we mistook for eternal love.
Only after leaving love can we truly fall in love.
There is another common misunderstanding about love, which is to regard dependence as love.
Dependence is not love, to be precise, it is a parasitic mentality.
You cannot survive without others, which means you are a parasite and the other party is the host.
Without the care and care of others, I think that life is not complete enough to make me unable to live a normal life, which constitutes a psychological "dependence".
Mental health people admit the rationality of this feeling, but will not let it control their lives.
Psychologically, it is called "negative dependence personality disorder" . People with this disease always think about how to get the love of others, but they don't have the energy to love others.
They only care about what others can do for them, but never think about how much they can give to the other party. Just like a hungry baby who always wants to ask for food from others, but cannot bring out food to help others.
If you want others to truly love you, you can only make yourself a person worthy of love. It is impossible to become a person worthy of love if you just passively accept other people's love.
If you want to avoid this situation, you must face reality and learn to truly know each other and love each other.
Now, we can finally explore together what true love is?
Real love is an experience that expands oneself. It is closely related to the boundaries of oneself and is a long-term and gradual process. It expands one's mind and makes oneself more mature.
True love is both love yourself and others. It can help both yourself and others grow.
True love means we have to keep working hard. to cross the original boundary, you cannot stay verbally, but take action, you cannot sit and enjoy the fruits, but you must give sincerely.
True love is action. It is an action produced by will.
If you must give a precise definition of true love, then as Scott Parker said:
True love is a will to promote the maturity of oneself and others, and to continuously expand one's boundaries and achieve self-improvement.
True love brings joy, which lasts longer, this state is more stable and makes us more satisfied.
The purpose of true love is always to promote the maturity of the mind, and love for other purposes is not true love.
Of course, the object of love can be not only a person, but also an inanimate thing or activity.
The long-term love for something makes us live in the state of spiritual concern, so our self-boundary begins to extend. After extending to a certain level, the self-boundary will fade, and at this time, our minds will mature.
A person can work seventy or eighty hours a week and concentrate on obtaining money or power. Of course, he can achieve something.
But The accumulation of money and the consolidation of power do not mean that one can truly expand and improve oneself.
Because, the only goal of love is to promote the maturity of the mind and the progress of human nature.
Regarding loving yourself , Scott Parker suggests:
We must cherish our bodies and take good care of it.
We need to have plenty of food to provide ourselves with warm accommodation.
We also need to rest and exercise, and relax and relax, rather than always being busy.
We also need to have reasonable and healthy hobbies.
Use money to buy more freedom and time, so that you can have the conditions to learn and think, and promote the growth of your mind and the maturity of your mind.
Money and power are not the ultimate goal, people are the objects of love.
Regarding loving others , Scott Parker pointed out:
's love for babies, pets, and love for a partner who obeys fate are mostly due to fatherly or maternal instincts, which is very similar to the situation of falling in love, and there is no need to put in too much effort. Love like
is not the result of active choices and efforts, and is not helpful to mental maturity, so it is not love in the true sense.
We should allow him/her to have independent thinking and will, because one of the essence of true love is to hope that the other party has an independent personality.
True love is not simply giving, but also includes: appropriate rejection, timely praise, appropriate criticism, appropriate debate, necessary encouragement, gentle comfort and effective urging.
It is better not to love too much. It is better to give blindly when it is time to refuse. It is not kindness, but hurt.
Overseas to take care of people who were originally capable of taking care of themselves will only make the other party more dependent. This is the abuse of love.
True love can make people change, which is essentially a kind of self-extension rather than a pure self-sacrifice.
A person who truly loves will never accuse the person he loves or conflict with the other party at will. They try their best to avoid giving each other an arrogance.
The most important and most specific form of love is attention. We love someone, and we will definitely pay attention to each other, take good care of each other, and then help each other grow.
The most common and most important way to pay attention is to listen hard.
An excellent business manager spends about one hour reading, two hours talking, and eight hours listening every day.
The recipient of love must know how to give, and the giver must also know how to accept. It is actually a two-way lane, a typical reciprocity behavior.
Regarding the risk of love , Scott Parker pointed out:
If you trust or rely on someone, you may suffer great harm because of the other party's departure or death.
The more love you invest, the greater the risk you will suffer.
However, in the process of expanding oneself, in addition to pain and sorrow, you can also reap happiness and happiness.
Marriage and family are like the base camp for mountaineering.
There are problems with men's marriages, mostly because they only want to climb up after marriage, but lack management for the base camp.
Most of the problems with a woman's marriage are caused by the fact that after marriage, the woman feels that everything is going well, and she thinks that her life value will be realized, and she regards the base camp as the peak of her life.
The essence of life is the process of continuous change, growth and decline.
chose life and growth, so he chose to face the possibility of death.
Under the guidance of death, we will be clearly aware that life is short and the time for love is limited, so we should cherish and grasp it.
If you don’t face death, you will not be able to obtain the true meaning of life and cannot understand what love is and what life is.
The only sense of security in life comes from fully experiencing the insecurity in life.
A person must make great strides,
realizes a complete self, and
obtains the independence of the soul.
Respect your own personality and desires,
Dare to venture into unknown fields,
can live freely,
makes your mind mature continuously,
experience the supreme state of love.
October 23, 2022
in Shanghai in the afternoon
