Operating Manual for Life -- Book Five
How To Create Your Own...
Operating Manual for Life
by Rel Davis
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BOOK FIVE
LIFE AND LOVE
What is love?
Most people don't really have any idea.
We confuse love with ownership.
Jealousy is an ownership issue.
Spouse abuse is an ownership issue.
We confuse love with power.
Rape is a power issue.
We confuse love with sex.
Sex is a physical issue.
Love is the active demonstration of respect between two people.
53.
Love is mutual affirmation.
Two-way respect and consideration.
Love is two people living a conversation.
We all need affirmation.
We all need other people to tell us we have a right to exist.
That's what love is.
Love is two people telling each other they have the right to exist.
Mutual affirmation of existence.
What many people think of love is the opposite of that.
They try to control loved ones.
They manipulate, imprison, punish...
For their own good.
Love is only effective when it's based on mutual respect.
I am only affirmed in my being...
If you totally accept my being,
If you accept that I'm all right.
If you tell me I'm no good,
You are not affirming me.
You are telling me I don't a right to be here.
If the opposite of love is hate,
Most relationships are based on hatred.
54.
There are four stages of love:
Hi.
I like you.
I love you.
I am in love with you.
Love doesn't have to be head-over-heals intensive.
Love -- mutual affirmation -- can even take place between two strangers.
Hi:
Two strangers meet.
They smile and say "Hi."
Each tells the other silently:
You have a right to be in my world.
I like you:
Two friends share an afternoon together.
They enjoy pleasant time with each other.
Each tells the other silently:
I'm glad you are in my world.
I love you:
Two close friends share joys and trials.
They share their closest feelings.
Each tells the other silently:
I want to share part of my world with you.
I am in love with you:
Two people form a loving relationship.
They spend a good part of their time together.
Each tells the other silently:
I want to share my world with you.
55.
Be kind to strangers.
They can give you love.
Just by saying "Hi."
Collins Avenue is the Main Street of Miami Beach.
Years ago, when Miami Beach was a Mecca for retirees from the Northeast U.S.,
Along Collins Avenue were rows of hotels filled with retirees.
Rows of lawn chairs lined the avenue for miles.
You could walk for blocks and see thousands of elderly people sitting in their chairs and looking listlessly at a world passing them by.
One day I started at the south and walked slowly north along the avenue.
As I walked, I smiled and said Good morning! to everyone I saw.
The change was miraculous.
As I walked, the listless faces brightened up.
Waves of smiling faces beamed back at me.
People returned my greeting with enthusiasm.
And all I said was Hi.
Their smiling faces made me feel good.
They gave love.
56.
Treasure your friends.
They can give you love.
Just by liking you.
We all need friends.
People who like us.
I know people who choose their "friends" based on class principles...
On what they can get from them...
On what being with them says to other people...
On how clever and witty they are.
The only valid judge of whether a person is a friend is simply this:
Do they like you?
We all need other people who like us.
That's why we all need friends.
A friend doesn't have to know all about you.
A friend doesn't have to share your deepest feelings.
All a friend has to do is enjoy spending time with you.
And really like you.
If you have a friend like this, hang on to her or him.
We need all the friends we can get.
57.
Make time in your life for close friends.
Those who share your deepest feelings.
They give you love -- because they love you.
We don't say I love you enough in our society.
We seem to be afraid people might take it wrong.
We seem to think every I love you ought to lead to sex.
Pretty sick society we live in, isn't it?
Those people who are comfortable enough with us to share their feelings...
People with whom we are comfortable enough to share our feelings...
These are rare indeed.
To share who we are with another person ...
Is to say I love you to that person.
I want to share part of my world with you.
I want to let you into my life,
Into my thoughts.
Far more valuable is a "lover" like this ...
Than any evening's sexual partner could ever be.
58.
A loving and committed relationship...
Is something most people spend their lives looking for.
Most people aren't willing to pay the price required.
When we tell someone (and mean it):
I want to share my world with you.
We are committing ourselves to doing just that.
The rewards of a being-in-love relationship are great.
But the price is high:
I must devote a lot of my time and space to the other person.
(As they devote time and space to me.)
I must learn to accept (and respect) our differences.
I must include the other person in all my plans.
I must voluntarily limit my actions if they conflict with my partner's values.
Yet I must never become responsible for my partner.
The price is great.
The rewards are worth it.
Most people want the rewards without having to pay the price.
59.
Marriage is only a legal contract,
Not a relationship.
A loving relationship is far more than a marriage.
People get married and expect to have a relationship right away.
The relationship comes later, with work.
The work begins, for most people, after the wedding ceremony.
You can get married for the price of a marriage license.
The price of a loving relationship
Is real commitment.
60.
Really!
It isn't really love if they don't love you back.
Unrequited love makes great plots for romances.
A pity it doesn't really exist.
You can't love someone else if they don't love you back.
Love must be mutual or it doesn't count.
If you think you love someone else but they don't love you...
You are dealing with infatuation, not love.
If you must have someone as your spouse, whatever the cost...
You are dealing with greed, not love.
If you love your grown children so much you'll do anything for them...
You are dealing with emptiness, not love.
Love only exists between two equal individuals,
Voluntarily acting out of respect for each other.
61.
And it isn't love...
If you don't love them back.
If someone says they love you,
But you don't feel good when you're around them.
It isn't love.
If someone adores you and says they'll do anything for you,
But you feel nothing for them.
It isn't love.
Be wary of people who say they love you when you don't love them.
They probably only want to control you...
Possess you...
Make you something other than who you really are.
Someone can buy you expensive gifts,
Shower you with luxuries...
But if you don't love them,
None of it will do you any good.
62.
Rape is a power issue.
And has nothing to do with love.
Much of what parades for love in our society ...
Is only an exercise of power.
The conquest of another person ...
Is an attempt to exercise power over them,
And that isn't love.
Rape (like its less violent twin, seduction)
Is a rejection of the other person's humanity.
Rather than affirming another person,
It denies that person's humanity.
Any time force is used to make someone do something they don't want to do,
That person is being treated like something less than human.
Don't confuse power with love.
Don't confuse sex with caring.
63.
Jealousy is a property issue...
And has nothing to do with love.
Shakespeare wrote it long ago:
"Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them,
But not for love."
Dying for another person, or killing another person, has nothing to do with love.
Any time violence is used in a relationship, it's a sign of ownership.
A man who thinks he owns his wife,
Feels justified in hurting her.
But ownership has no place in a loving relationship.
Ownership implies an unequal relationship.
One owner, one slave.
If you treat me like a slave, you are not affirming my being.
You might value a piece of property,
But you don't respect it.
True love is based on respect.
64.
Don't take yourself so seriously!
We forget that love is supposed to be fun.
We are supposed to enjoy each other...
Be happy when we're with each other.
Lighten up!
A therapist friend of mine often has her clients do one thing.
Write down the words:
"This person is not to be taken so seriously."
And then post them on the bathroom mirror,
As the first thing they see every morning.
Love flourishes in joy.
It languishes in sadness, and anger, and manipulation.
Most of the problems in love relations will disappear...
When we stop taking ourselves so seriously.
65.
It's true.
Lovers really do live longer.
People in loving relationships tend to be physically healthier than people without love in their lives.
That's because we need love in order to be healthy.
You need your friends.
You need your loving companions.
You need people who like you,
Who enjoy spending time with you.
Your body responds to a good mental attitude.
And loving friends help you maintain a good mental attitude.
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