Love--The You, the Me, the Us

People use the word "love" in so many ways that it often becomes meaningless. If you "love" pizza" and "love" your wife-do you mean the same thing? Is you wife really covered with cheese and pepperoni? When you say "I love you" to another person do you mean-"I want you for myself alone," "I want you for what you do for me," or "I want to help you to be the best you can be." There is nothing more important for most of us than to be in a loving, nurturing relationship. Survey after survey shows that a strong relationship is the most important factor in most peoples' minds. Today, with our varying vocational and recreational interests, our smaller families-that are often many miles removed from where we live, and the all too common break-ups of relationships we once thought were solid-we need strong human bonds to secure what most psychologists feel is our most basic human need-LOVE. Whether we opt for a traditional heterosexual marriage, a same sex marriage, or merely living together in a relationship that is not registered with the state-our needs and responsibilities are similar. It is not only the changing of society that erects hurdles in our path to happiness, it is the crunch of time pressures from our often self-inflicted busy schedules that impinge upon our most basic psychological need. Perhaps if we understand a bit more in detail of the forces that move within us and the forces that our environment bombards us with, we may be able to sort the wheat from the chaff and create a life that is truly satisfying-a life that takes seriously our need to develop and live a LIFE of LOVE.