Love, Lust, Passion, Commitment - What does Love mean to You?

Love, lust, passion, loyalty, faithfulness, commitment.

Love means different things to different people. What does it mean to you?

For those of us that are romantics at heart the thought of love might conjure up an image of buying a small lock and securing it on a bridge in Paris and throwing the key into the flowing Seine below to declare our love for one another; Of course we won't all fly across the country on a whim to meet at the top of the Empire State building in New York, hoping to find the ONE (Sleepless in Seattle..or fall head over heels in love with a Vampire(Twilight) or fall for a glamorous movie star (Noting Hill) but..

Love matters in so many ways and for many different reasons.

The need to love and be loved is humanities primary reason for living so a famous therapist once said.

Holidays and Celebrations.

We celebrate love every year with special days set aside for the loved ones in our life and they are an indicator to show how important love is.

• We celebrate the love of our Mothers for mothers day and our Fathers for fathers day.
• The love for God and for Jesus birth at Christmas.
• The love of a partner, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, sister, brother, grandparent or other family member, wonderful neighbor, best friend, best buddy etc etc on Valentine's Day
• Easter is another reminder on the Christians calendar of the greatest love sacrifice in history of the Son dying for the world.
• And of course the insatiable love we have for all things chocolate at Easter.

Different Types of Love

Romantic Love

It’s not hard to imagine if you’ve been in love yourself what romantic love feels like. And with the scores of love stories portrayed in movies such as;

• The Notebook
• Pride and Prejudice
• Romeo and Juliet
• Noting Hill
• Love Actually
• Serendipity
• Twilight
• PS I Love You
• Titanic
• Letters To Juliet
• Leap Year to name just a few that show the passion of young people falling in love.

While most of us enjoy the excitement of a passionate love affair we often forget that some of the most beautiful love stories ever told have nothing to do with the kind of passionate sexual love seen here.

Commitment Love

It’s easy to imagine the passion of love, but what about other types of love such as commitment love seen in movies such as;

• In Her Shoes - where parents have another child to be a donor to the child that is dying

• A Walk to Remember - where a rebellious young man gives up his wild ways to look after the girl he fell for when she is diagnosed with cancer.

• Blindside - And who can forget the unforgettable special love relationship between Sandra Bullock in her role as a rich socialite with her foster then adoptive son Michael.

• Anne of Green Gables - the touching scene in Anne of Green Gable where Mathew expresses the love he has for his adoptive daughter Anne Shirley and buys her a beautiful blue dress to wear to her first ball.

And how beautiful are the following expressions of love;

The kind that donates their organs so that people may have another chance in life

Or the type of love that takes the blame for someone else’s mistakes.

Or the commitment type of love needed to endure the long term care of disability or chronic illness, mental illness or old age.

Love is multifaceted and means different things to different people.

“Real, sane, mature love—the kind that pays the mortgage year after year and picks up the kids after school—is not based on infatuation but on affection and respect.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

At a time when the word love can become over used and meaningless and is often portrayed as purely physical by Hollywoods standards it can be a good exercise to take a moment and reflect on what love means to us.