Love & Happiness

Almost without thinking about it, many of us have love as one of the most important ingredients in the Universal Happiness Recipe. We want to give love, we want to receive love, but most of all we want to "be in love." And if we were, if we were in love all the time, we think we'd be happy. Hmmmm... maybe.

Love, as the term is usually bantered about, refers to just one type of love -- romantic love, or what the ancient Greek philosophers called eros. Before we even look at another type of love, I think that we can clear up a lot of confusion merely by exploring a few modern myths about romantic love or eros. And, so, here are four of the most prevalent myths:

1) The defining feature of true love is a passion that never fades. True, romantic love is hot and heavy on the passion scale, at least at first. That's why it is so thrilling and so addicting. You are totally enamored by the other person, and your life seems qualitatively different, i.e., a helluva lot better, than it did before they entered it. The only problem is that passion, like everything else in the universe that has a beginning, also has an end. It may burn bright for awhile, a long while, if you're lucky. It may smolder, it may rekindle, it may burst out into an occasional flame, but it will not last at the level of red hot intensity forever. Understanding this simple truth will help you avoid disappointment, depression and dismay, and insure that you don't build your entire edifice of happiness on the shifting sands of passion.

2) If you feel passionate about each other, you should marry. Marriage is a legal and civil agreement. Passion is a physical and very uncivil emotion. Talk about your proverbial oil and water! You don't have to be Margaret Mead in Samoa to see as a participant-observer in our culture that marriage is one of the chief causes of unhappiness! In large part because it is undertaken many times in the heat of passion! Passion is to be enjoyed for as long as it lasts. In that way it contributes to your happiness. Trying to do anything else with passion, other than enjoy it, will surely contribute to your unhappiness.

3) If the passion ceases or diminishes, you should split up because it wasn't true love. If you equate true love with passion, love, like passion, will always end. If you believe that passion is the most important ingredient in your intimate partnerships, then you'll go through a whole shitload of partners! Here's the given -- the passion will diminish. Even if you read all those hokey books like How to Light His Fire or How to Light Her Fire, the passion will diminish. Expecting it not to merely adds to your unhappiness.

4) If you find the right person you'll have passion and romance forever. Yeah, and Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny will all come to your 50th anniversary celebration! The book of Ecclesiastes knew it, The Byrds knew it, and now you know it -- to every thing there is a season. The season of romance and passion is not a 50 year ride. You can have joyful, wonderful  relationships even after the bird of passion has flown the coop. 

And that brings us to the second kind of love that those wise, old, ancient Greek dudes knew all about -- agape. Agape is more about compassion than passion. It has been described as "the affection we feel for those with whom our lives are deeply entwined." Compassion doesn't require kegs of testosterone or minivans full of estrogen to fuel it. Compassion is love unsullied by desire. 

It goes without saying that passion plays an important role in life. Who'd want to live a life without it? What isn't said nearly enough is that while passion is finite, compassion can be infinite. We may feel it first and foremost for those to whom we are closest, but the ripples of compassion can spread outside of our family and our small circle of friends to anyone,  to everyone we encounter. 

True happiness, while experienced individually, is not selfish in nature. Happiness begets, feeds upon and grows more happiness. It's like a positive virus, that has the potential to infect the entire planet. And the carrier is love, love in the form of compassion. 

The feeling of compassion, in and of itself, brings you happiness. The expression of compassion, brings happiness to others, and lo and behold, brings you even more happiness. Then, the person who experiences your compassion is much more likely to be compassionate to others and the happiness virus spreads. 

And before you know it, you are part of a revolution -- the happiness revolution! Compassion rules! And yeah, those bright, wild, crazy flashes of passion, they're pretty nice, too!