How You Measure the Love You Have for Others

When you love yourself, you naturally feel inclined to love others as well. This is an expression of emotional awareness. Through these emotions, your inner feelings are revealed. If you received love in your early life, you will, in turn, extend love to others. If you did not receive love initially, all of this may manifest in either a direct or adverse manner. This is something that parents, guardians, and relatives must observe with great care.

If others do not love you, you may also refrain from loving anyone. In some individuals, positive and negative emotions coexist. Among these, positive emotions bring happiness. What, then, is the definition of happiness? It is the combined expression of love, affection, compassion, peace, calmness, and kindness. These qualities grant success to a person. The composition of your emotional fulfillment determines whether your happiness is abundant or limited. When you evaluate and balance these emotions, you can understand—by observing the scale of happiness—whether your life leans toward joy or sorrow.

A woman who does not live lovingly with her husband does not become a kind and loving mother-in-law. No matter how much effort the husband makes, he often meets only failure. Is this a deficiency of love, a lack of affection, or an obstruction in emotional bonding? You must decide for yourself. Individuals with such dispositions may, in later life, reach a stage where the very word “love” finds no place in them. However, I would say that this is not an unsolvable problem.

No one can arrange a marriage between two minds that do not agree. Love is not a journey taken on a single path; both minds must walk the same path. If two people fall in love but their marriage does not materialize, it indicates that there is some moral dilemma or unresolved conflict in the way they exchange love and affection.

It is possible that a woman who is about to be married expected love from her parents and was disappointed. This may have caused resentment toward life. For some reason, she may even have married due to pressure from others. Such individuals, however, remain emotionally distant from their husbands, without nurturing love or affection, maintaining a certain detachment. A smile appears on their face only occasionally, like the rare blooming of a Karthigai flower. Their responses to questions are often limited to “yes,” “no,” or “I don’t know.” They should not be allowed to dwell on past thoughts. Instead, they must reflect on their present state and consciously transform themselves.

A very important point is that even sorrowful emotions play a supporting role in helping us live lovingly. We must control them without allowing them to exceed limits. In everyone’s life, sorrow, fear, hatred, anger, and hostility are bound to arise. Our emotional strength lies in how we handle them. If we fail to manage these emotions properly, they can escalate into disgust, intense hatred, and jealousy. It is through the depth of your emotional mastery that your life can be restructured into a fulfilling existence. Love and affection will then naturally spring forth. Shakespeare once said that the most destructive of all emotions is fear. When animals are frightened, they become submissive. Human beings are the same—when afraid, they become paralyzed.

Now, let us turn to affection and love. A mother buys a pair of sandals for her son. In memory of his mother, the son wears them every day. Over time, they wear out, yet he refuses to discard them. A relative, out of affection for the son, buys him a new pair of sandals. Is this affection, or is it love?

You decide for yourself.

Na. Mahesan
Canada