Love Is No Transaction
© Jay Harden
For me the relationship issue is about love, and not about the other person. I was raised to believe that love is a transaction, that you must give love in order to get love. It sounded so believable I did not question it. Clearly then, at one time or another in a relationship, one party will inevitably feel they gave and didn't get. It quickly gets crazy when both feel this way at the same time. And both wonder what the hell is happening. The truth of the matter that I have found is that love simply is. You either express love in your living, or you do not, in your actions as well as your thoughts. When both parties understand and practice this true loving, then bliss automatically flows out of each one onto the other. There is no exchange, no keeping score - no reason to. Each is free of the need for another's love because they are living by loving. In this framework it makes no sense to give and get; it only makes sense to just be, to just love. This is the pinnacle of individual freedom and individual power. On the other hand, when both in a relationship believe love is a transaction, love drama is guaranteed and the future is dicey. In a relationship where only one discovers, understands, and practices just loving for its own sake, the other must grow and change in response, or else the relationship ends.
22 May 2008
O'Fallon, Missouri