The paths of love.

Love is what everyone of us needs. Yet, it is one of the most puzzling emotion in our lives. Almost everyone of us go through it. Sometimes, it is smooth sailing, the couple gets married and they apparently lived happily ever after. For some, it begins with someone unknown, quickly thrown into a marriage and from then onwards get to appreciate that someone who has been put together with them, graduating culminating in love. Then again, there are those who find the going rough, either at only one stretch of the way or all the way till death or a divorce do them part.

Teenagers, even oldsters, find that the love emotion emerges as they mix around. One day, it was a carefree joy to be around just to enjoy the company. Then, without any warning, an emotion of special liking for someone arises. The urge to be close with that someone, to be more and more a part of that someone's life becomes evident.

If the feeling is mutual, then a relationship starts. Love is never predictable and there are times when the emotion is only one sided from the beginning; and sometimes the other party may be interested but the interest does not last. When that happens, the party who loves will experience great pain. How well he/she takes that pain depends upon the person's attitude towards life, love and happiness. If the love is intense, the pain can last quite long, maybe forever, even when another person appears on the scene.

So, should a youth be faced with a love situation like the one my friend's son encountered (The one I wrote about a few days' ago.) how can the parents help?

If I were the parent concerned, i would tell the youth that it is something that happens all the time. Sometimes, love hurts and we have to expect such experiences in life. Tell the guy/gal that when one door closes, another is bound to open. One day, when both sides click and the magnets do not repel, then be ready to live that moment and reach out for happiness. Of course, tell him/her we do not expect him/her to feel the pain any less. Enjoy the pain but not for too long for it is possible to be entrapped by the pleasure of self-sympathy.

Sometimes. God works in mysterious ways. The first or second failure could be lessons to have the guy be prepared for the next time he/she gets that love-pull again towards somebody else. Some of us who have experienced this knows it.

Whatever it is, parents ought to prepare their children to the pot-holes of love. People who have fallen in had not been able to crawl out, causing needless death. Some have their minds warped because of it and had to depend upon medicine for the rest of their lives. Of course, it is not easy to prepare grown children for such events in their lives. That is one of the reason I am sharing it by putting this down on this blog so that it could, perhaps, be of help to someone.

If it can merely save one person from heartache through understanding that love and happiness in life is not lost forever through some wrong connection or some connection mistake. God gives us the life to search and find the right connection and until then, we ought to continue to love ourselves even more.

For how can we expect anyone to love us if we cannot even love ourselves enough to carry on? It is when we love ourselves that we put forward our very best and that makes it easier for others to see the best in us, loving what they see.