Love vs. Selfishness

"I am satisfied that a happy marriage is not so much a matter of romance as it is an anxious concern for the comfort and well-being of one’s companion."  - President Gordan B. Hinckley

Perhaps one can say the same thing about true love since one should not marry someone without it...  one should care and love someone so much that one is willing to commit himself or herself in making one's eternal companion happy forever.  If anything, isn't marriage the most important decision that one makes in one's lifetime?  The person you are with and will be with shapes you, determines the life style you will have, and defines who you will be.  Marriage is not only universally recognized, but has always been recognized since the beginning of the times of creation.  For that very reason, the adversity tries to defile what is so sacred with temptations and by normalizing and minimizing the magnitude of transgressions...  Sadly, the rates of divorce is increasing and alternate life styles, too, are becoming more and more accepted throughout the nation.

I'm learning that selfishness is the root of all evil.  The world tells us to be selfish--to do the things that make us happy.  The world defines happiness as pleasure, escape from the reality, and fulfillment of the desires of men.  However, real happiness is lasting--it is not fleeting giving a temporary high only to be followed by emptiness.

It is when we allow selfishness to coexist with ourselves that our relationships with others suffer because instead of thinking, "what can I do for you," we are asking, "what do you have to offer me?"  I hope that one day, I'll learn to be completely selfless and remember to never settle for the way I am today but always seek progression towards being better--towards perfection.  I dream of the day when I have the opportunity to marry a man of my dreams who will do whatever it takes to be a man of God for an eternity...

Can I Count on You?

Will you be there to catch me when I fall regardless of any given situation, or will you let me fall and hope that I will get up on my own?  

Will you hold me when I'm in tears?

Can I believe that you will care for me tomorrow and forever as you cared for me today and yesterday?

When I turn around, will you still be there?  

Will you think of me when I'm not in sight? 

Can I count on you and believe that you'll always be there for me?"

Never Say Never

All this time, I've thought that I would be this one way because I thought I saw everything in black and white...  Sometimes, it's not a matter of what is right or what is wrong--it's simply a matter of what works for you.  

I've realized that feelings, thoughts, and people change all the time.  So, you never know when you might do something that you once vowed that you'd never do.  And that's okay as long as you're following your morals and you're not hurting anyone.  Isn't it a relief to know that we can change?  It can be scary too because the change doesn't always imply for the better, but that is why we always aim really high so that no matter what, we will be better than yesterday.

My current Favorite Song:

"…I hear you in my dreams

I feel your whisper across the sea

I keep you with me in my heart

You make it easier when life gets hard

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend

Lucky to have been where I have been…”

Not Yet Over You

I don't want to cry over you anymore, but these tears...  I can't seem to control these tears streaming down my face.  What's happened to me?  Have I become weak?  I thought I had moved on enough that seeing you again wouldn't affect me this much.  I suppose I fell harder than I thought, and I'm seeing that I'm still refusing to let go.  I'm sure there will be one day I'll look back and laugh at the experience, but today my heart aches at the thought that maybe...  just maybe it didn't have to be this way.  I almost wish you could've just been a jerk until the end.  That way, I wouldn't ever think of looking back.  I guess "good" closures don't really exist because it only prevents the wounds from healing...  I still care about you, but it hurts too much to care.

Stagnant... too stubborn

I happen to make my life so much harder than it needs to be...  It's the little stubborn kid in me that keeps getting me into bigger trouble.  As a little kid, if my parents told me "no," I refused to accept "no" for an answer.  I whined and threw temper tantrums until I got my way, but sometimes I didn't get it my way.  Actually, I didn't get it my way most of the time.  However, it didn't stop me from throwing temper tantrums even with the knowledge that I was going to receive a punishment as a result of my bad behavior.  One might argue that perhaps the punishment wasn't great enough to stop me, but my parents would tell you that I was just too stubborn for my own good.

Over the years, you would think that I had learned this lesson a long time ago, but I still find myself repeating the same mistake.  The main difference is that I was four then, and I had the excuse of, "she's only a little kid who doesn't know any better."  Now?  At the age of adulthood, it's simply pathetic.

I used to make fun of all the girls that stayed in relationships that was no good for them or girls who made excuses for the guy's bad behaviors.  As an outsider, it was so easy to see that the girl had somehow allowed the guy to treat her badly.  Of course, if the guy was truly as amazing as she said he was, he would have never treated her badly in the first place.  In essence, both are to blame.  At the same time, it's no reason to continue to be in non-working relationship if both people are not willing to give 100% to the relationship.  

So, let's say that two people are dating.  Since it's in the beginning of the relationship, everyone puts on this mask and is on their best behavior in the first few months.  You can't live life behind a mask though because pretending to be something that you're not is extremely exhausting.  So, layer by layer, you start to reveal who you really are.  The problem is this: the girl refuses to accept what is being shown later in the relationship for what she saw through the colored lens in the beginning of the relationship.  Since she's still holding on to the idea of the guy, she can't see the guy for who he is.  Also, if you are stubborn like me, you may even refuse to accept anything contrary to what you want to believe by putting away all the things you don't like into a "if i pretend it's not there, it'll go away" box.  Now, here are two problems surfacing:

1) Refusing to see the reality of things

2) Refusing to accept the reality even after seeing what is true

Of course, life doesn't let you shove your problems away in a box because that defeats the purpose of this life.  Somewhere along the way, you're forced to learn to deal with the issues.

Then here's the case I'm stuck in.  Deep inside, you know that things are over, and yet whenever you see him or hear from him, you wonder if things really had to be over.  Somehow, it's as though the process wasn't painful enough that you're willing to even think about the impossible.  You're hurting, so you expect the other person to be in just as much pain when in truth their feelings never ran very deep.  Well, if they were willing to give it up so fast at the first opportunity to give up, then obviously it wasn't worth very much to that person.  Apparently, you are easily replaceable...  You realize the reality of it all, but even with the reality check, you refuse to accept it for the sake of the wasted love.  At this point, it's a sunk cost!  This is what I call being pathetic.  The trap that so many girls fall into because she simply won't let go.  What's the cost of not letting go?  Her pride.  Her dignity.  Her worth.  When the cost is just so high, why then do people still have a hard time letting go?  

You see, the cost of letting go, too, is high.  It's the best thing to do under the circumstances, but she has to somehow come to terms with the fact that what was once true is no longer true.  What once felt right no longer is right.  She has to give up the hopes of what could have beens...  She must erase the happy times for the sake of gaining her sanity and her future.  She must put the guy down as either a jerk, "lacking," or no longer compatible in her history so that when she meets the next guy, she will be without the emotional baggage.  She somehow has to not just hope but believe that she will find someone better or someone right for her...  At this stage, no one can really help her because it's something she has to do for herself.  She has to love and care about herself enough to find the will to move on.

I once wrote, "Time is an incredible medicine for healing if you will let it... A lot of the times though, we have a hard time letting go. We keep hanging onto what we once had even if it no longer exists. Sometimes, there are truths that we rather not accept because accepting it would be admitting defeat. At the same time, by not accepting the truth, we are only fighting a lost battle..."

The Meaning of Valentine's Day: Love is Selfish by Gary Hull

Every Valentine's Day a certain philosophic crime is perpetrated. Actually, it is committed year-round, but its destructiveness is magnified on this holiday. The crime is the propagation of a widely accepted falsehood: the idea that love is selfless. Love, we are repeatedly taught, consists of self-sacrifice. Love based on self-interest, we are admonished, is cheap and sordid. True love, we are told, is altruistic. But is it?Imagine a Valentine's Day card which takes this premise seriously. Imagine receiving a card with the following message: "I get no pleasure from your existence. I obtain no personal enjoyment from the way you look, dress, move, act or think. Our relationship profits me not. You satisfy no sexual, emotional or intellectual needs of mine. You're a charity case, and I'm with you only out of pity. Love, XXX. "Needless to say, you would be indignant to learn that you are being "loved," not for anything positive you offer your lover, but--like any recipient of alms--for what you lack. Yet that is the perverse view of love entailed in the belief that it is self-sacrificial.Genuine love is the exact opposite. It is the most selfish experience possible, in the true sense of the term: it benefits your life in a way that involves no sacrifice of others to yourself or of yourself to others.To love a person is selfish because it means that you value that particular person, that he or she makes your life better, that he or she is an intense source of joy--to you. A "disinterested" love is a contradiction in terms. One cannot be neutral to that which one values. The time, effort and money you spend on behalf of someone you love are not sacrifices, but actions taken because his or her happiness is crucially important to your own. Such actions would constitute sacrifices only if they were done for a stranger--or for an enemy. Those who argue that love demands self-denial must hold the bizarre belief that it makes no personal difference whether your loved one is healthy or sick, feels pleasure or pain, is alive or dead.It is regularly asserted that love should be unconditional, and that we should "love everyone as a brother." We see this view advocated by the "non-judgmental" grade-school teacher who tells his class that whoever brings a Valentine's Day card for one student must bring cards for everyone. We see it in the appalling dictum of "Hate the sin, but love the sinner"--which would have us condemn death camps but send Hitler a box of Godiva chocolates. Most people would agree that having sex with a person one despises is debased. Yet somehow, when the same underlying idea is applied to love, people consider it noble.Love is far too precious to be offered indiscriminately. It is above all in the area of love that egalitarianism ought to be repudiated. Love represents an exalted exchange--a spiritual exchange--between two people, for the purpose of mutual benefit. You love someone because he or she is a value--a selfish value to you, as determined by your standards--just as you are a value to him or her.It is the view that you ought to be given love unconditionally--the view that you do not deserve it any more than some random bum, the view that it is not a response to anything particular in you, the view that it is causeless--which exemplifies the most ignoble conception of this sublime experience. The nature of love places certain demands on those who wish to enjoy it. You must regard yourself as worthy of being loved. Those who expect to be loved, not because they offer some positive value, but because they don't--i.e., those who demand love as altruistic duty--are parasites. Someone who says "Love me just because I need it" seeks an unearned spiritual value--in the same way that a thief seeks unearned wealth. To quote a famous line from The Fountainhead: "To say 'I love you,' one must know first how to say the 'I. '  "Valentine's Day--with its colorful cards, mouth-watering chocolates and silky lingerie--gives material form to this spiritual value. It is a moment for you to pause, to ignore the trivialities of life--and to celebrate the selfish pleasure of being worthy of someone's love and of having found someone worthy of yours.

Copyright 2004 Ayn Rand Institute. All rights reserved.

Dear 2009,

I'm not going to write down New Year's Resolution this time around telling you of all my dreams and hopes of achievements for the year to come... Instead of feeling revived that it's a new year, the thought of writing down goals is only making me feel overwhelmed and anxious.

I hope that you will bring peace to my family. It pains me to watch my family in fights all the time--all the blaming that happens because no one feels valued by one another. Somehow, with the years of conflict, they have forgotten that they must value themselves too. How could good people put together create a nightmare for one another?

I desire to learn to separate my world and other people's world so that I do not allow other people's misdeeds have such a huge impact in my life. That way, I can still carry on with my life. I hope to have compassion for others and learn that I do not have to completely lose myself when in service of others.

I hope to experience passion and love all in one--to know and feel what it's like to want to live and die for something or someone... I hope to learn to follow my heart rather than doing all the calculations in my head only to realize that the rationality has prevented me to fully experience what life has to offer. I seek to live with and conquer my fears rather than pretending that I am one with no fears...

So, if you can, remind me time and time again of the meaning of life that I may find my purpose and learn to always have joy.


Truly,
Eun-Jin


"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value." - Albert Einstein