The Alphabet of Love ( Part 2 )

This is the continuation of my previous article : The Alphabet of Love. If you missed the first part kindly click on the link and read on. Cheers!

If you want to read the first part of this article you may click this link here : The Alphabet of Love ( Part 1 )

Without further ado let me pick up where I left off…

Gallant

The meaning of gallant I am referring to is “showing courage; very brave”. I say this because being in love is not for the faint-hearted. It takes a lot of courage to face love head on. Because as it stands, love does not come with only good things. There will be a lot of hardships, heartaches and tears when love comes a knocking on your door. When you decide to dive deeper into the well that is called love, there will also be a lot of uncertainties and hard choices that you will have to make, to prove over and over that your love is real. But once you conquer all of those things, love is sweeter and a whole lot more satisfying.

Humility

Being in love is humbling. Pride has no place whatsoever in it. It is not a competition, it is not a contest, it is not a game to be won but it is a partnership that continues to grow the more you put your partner’s needs and welfare in front of your own. Pride has claimed a lot of relationships and destroyed a lot of homes already. There’s a saying that pride is the hardest thing to swallow, alright maybe not literally but again, if you cherish your pride over your partner, maybe it is not real love.

If anything, love shall be the one to provide pride. If you really are in love with somebody, you shall be proud with what your partner has accomplished, you must be proud with what your partner has achieved, you must be proud of the things your partner does and most of all, you must be proud of your partner in general. I am amazed with people who can genuinely look at their partner, with that proud smile on their face and could say “That is my girl/boy.”

Influence

Love affects a person more than anything else. For better or for worse, it all depends on the the object of their affection. Let us put it in a simple example. An ordinary salaryman falls in love with a corporate heir. She was the future successor of a huge conglomerate. The guy feels that with his current social standing that he might not be good enough for her, or to her family at least. What does the guy do? He devised a 7-year plan to work his ass off, invest to different things with the goal to elevate his social stature. Lady luck may have been on his side and he was able to build a restaurant chain from the rubble and he becomes a business hotshot. He worked for the betterment of his life and himself and he is now confident enough to meet the love of his life eye to eye. Point is, he was influenced by the girl to live a better and a wealthier life, he did not just wake up and wanted to be rich, that decision was made possible by his love for the girl. The example may be too materialistic but it just explains the point a little better.

 On the other hand, love can also influence another person to take the worse path in his life. It is all possible because once true love hits you, you will have the courage to toss every thing away and make every decision influenced by it.

Joyful

Oh love, when it is right, oh the joy it could bring. It will overflow and you will have a lot more to share. Joy is not just the feeling of happiness. I think it is deeper than that. Joy is like the culmination of happiness and pleasure. It’s more of a special feeling. Something that can’t be described or expressed by a mere smile or laughter. I believe that if you are joyful, it is not only your face that is smiling, it is also your heart. The phrase tears of joy is perfect. You are just too glad and too happy that your face could not express it properly so instead of laughter or a smile it sends out the emergency signals and make you tear up instead.

 Keen

The definition of the word keen I am going to relate to love is this one : extremely sensitive in perception. Now this may be a bit tricky but please bear with me. I am just talking about being keen in a specific manner. I am not saying that when you are deeply in love with somebody you will have super sensitive sight, hearing, smell or just super sensitivity to anything. I am just saying that if you really love somebody and you have grown accustomed to his or her personality you will have that keen sense of sensitivity towards her. You might do things that are not said but you know that will have an affect of your likability level.

Let us again try to illuminate this idea with another example. Lucy’s husband comes home from work. He tossed his bag to the side, he sat down on the couch with his back comfortably against it and his head laid back. Lucy placed a cold drink on the coffee table and massaged the side of his head. Just like it was instinct she knew that he was tired and needed that without the husband saying anything. It’s quite simple, she had paid attention. She saw the tiredness in his eyes and his body language. As your love for someone evolves over time, you grow sensitive to what he or she wants and needs. And as a loving partner you tend to those wants and needs.

Luck

Not all people is capable of loving. Trust me, that is true. I am not just saying that because I am bitter or something, it is just the way it is. At the same time, not every one will find true love. It is just a matter of being in the right place, in the right time, saying the right things and having the right attitude. That is what I call luck. It’s the convergence of opportunity or chance and readiness, that is luck.

 I think those who gets to experience true love are lucky. There is this quote that I really grew to like: “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another” - Thomas Merton. I heard this from a show called Criminal Minds. And it just stuck with me ever since. I think it is by pure luck to find that someone who will give meaning to your life. What about you? Are you feeling lucky?

Mutual

Love is mutual. That is why we have the saying “it’s give and take”. And I am not only talking about quantifiable things like money and all those. We as individual have our own characteristics, social standing, traits and all that, so it will be next to impossible to give what you have taken. I think the best way to achieve this mutual state in love is to give your all always and both sides. Even if one person’s “all” is more like “half” of the other’s that is still mutual for me.

As long as you both give your 100 percent to each other, it does not matter how much the difference is, it is mutual. Again, another saying goes to mind with this, “It is the thought that counts.” That statement does not only apply to gift giving, it can be applied to giving in general. I mean, if you gave your partner a watch, don’t expect him or her to give something with the same or higher cash value than that, it should not be that way. Let us say that watch costs 10 grand and what you received is something worth 5. Don’t fret about it, what if those 5 grand was all he or she has at that time? Then it meant that he or she gave her all to you and you should be grateful for that.

When you are truly in love, the mutual feeling is not something you intend to do, it will come to you naturally. But what about if it’s unrequited love? You give your all heart to the person and you did not receive any part of them? Well then that’s another story. And this article won’t be done for another year if I delved into that any further. So let’s stop at that for now.

And speaking of stop, I apologize for I have to stop again here. Will continue the rest on the next part. Please stay tuned. :)

Hey there!

Thank you so much for sticking up with me through this second part. And as usual, if you have any thoughts about this topic feel free to voice it out on the comments section. Furthermore, if you have any comment, suggestion, violent reaction and whatnot, please let me know. I would love to hear from you.

Thanks, and as always, cheers!!!

Sources :

Lead Image : Photo by Shamia Casiano from Pexels

Image 1 : https://medium.com/the-ascent/love-a-feeling-or-a-choice-27abce792957