Love. Oh, that's so cliché.
It's easy to love when you're happy. The euphoria you feel can easily be expressed towards another, when you feel that in such a bright state, you can express it, with all the energy happiness gives you.
I have noticed many who have mistook the pleasure of knowing that another person loves them, as love; especially when their own self confidence is low (which is, as you know, very common). When you know someone loves you, it is obviously pleasurable, and sparks an association between the person who is giving you that happiness, and that happiness is often labelled as love. But, clearly, this is dangerous. Because this "love" started based on the knowledge that another loves you, the emotion you are feeling is likely to instead be the happiness that you get from being loved. Therefore, you are in love with the fact that the other loves you, rather than focusing on the person. It becomes conditional, and very difficult if the other's love for you ceases; it becomes an addiction. Addictions, as we know, need to constantly be satiated. You become addicted to being loved. This is selfish, but rather than focusing on the fact that it's selfish (which most people, once they realize they've been called selfish, become defensive), I'd like to focus on the fact that it's dangerous, for you. Putting your own happiness in the hands of another leaves you out of control of your own emotions.
And it's easy to love when you're at the other end of the spectrum, when you feel lonely, or anxious, or depressed. These kinds of feelings make you need another there. But this is another form of focusing on yourself, a need to be loved and fulfilled.
I believe that you can be confident that you are experiencing true love, as cliché as those two words are, when you are in an intermediate state, when you're not experienceing the extreme emotions. Then, you have no "need" or "compulsion" to love, you just do. It is when you don't need the other's love to fulfill you, and you focus on loving them, that you truly love.
I have noticed many who have mistook the pleasure of knowing that another person loves them, as love; especially when their own self confidence is low (which is, as you know, very common). When you know someone loves you, it is obviously pleasurable, and sparks an association between the person who is giving you that happiness, and that happiness is often labelled as love. But, clearly, this is dangerous. Because this "love" started based on the knowledge that another loves you, the emotion you are feeling is likely to instead be the happiness that you get from being loved. Therefore, you are in love with the fact that the other loves you, rather than focusing on the person. It becomes conditional, and very difficult if the other's love for you ceases; it becomes an addiction. Addictions, as we know, need to constantly be satiated. You become addicted to being loved. This is selfish, but rather than focusing on the fact that it's selfish (which most people, once they realize they've been called selfish, become defensive), I'd like to focus on the fact that it's dangerous, for you. Putting your own happiness in the hands of another leaves you out of control of your own emotions.
And it's easy to love when you're at the other end of the spectrum, when you feel lonely, or anxious, or depressed. These kinds of feelings make you need another there. But this is another form of focusing on yourself, a need to be loved and fulfilled.
I believe that you can be confident that you are experiencing true love, as cliché as those two words are, when you are in an intermediate state, when you're not experienceing the extreme emotions. Then, you have no "need" or "compulsion" to love, you just do. It is when you don't need the other's love to fulfill you, and you focus on loving them, that you truly love.