Those who have learned to love do not depend on the person they love, nor do they allow her to depend on them, they create a space of freedom for the person they love.
Can you talk about putting limits on love? Surely not, if what we want is to talk about the love of romantic novels, eternal and exclusive. Nor can we put limits if we talk about the love of Greek tragedies, dramatic and irresistible. But something else happens with our love every day. The love that we are truly capable of feeling and that we hope others can feel for us. For better and for worse, that love is not some sublime and unlimited feeling. It is not, I repeat to make it clear, it is not an emotion reserved for a few, nor is it something that is felt exclusively in a moment of life in front of a single person.
WHAT IS TRUE LOVE?
Possible and real love is closely related to what in everyday language we could enunciate as “loving someone a lot”, and that simplified can be defined as the simple and committed manifestation of the “purest interest that someone is capable of feeling for another person”.
And let it be clear that I say “simple” not to minimize its importance, but to reduce its solemnity and so that we can all understand the magic and presence of this feeling in everyone’s life.
In other words: the person who takes care of you and feels that they care about you, the one who is happy with your achievements and accompanies you in a difficult moment, the one who respects your times and your choices. without a doubt loves you, even if sometimes he says no, even if he never seriously thinks about committing suicide if what you want most goes wrong, and even if one day he does not choose you to share any of his projects.
AUTHENTIC LOVE HAS NO LIMITS
Of course, this definition of the limits of love can only conform to those of us who know that we need others, their presence and their help, but we never hold them responsible for our lives, our successes or our moods.
And of course, this look will never be enough for those who prefer to grant others the power to make them angry, to make them cry or to make them happy, because they do not want to accept that they are responsible for their lives.
YOU CAN ONLY LOVE IN FREEDOM
It is true that we are not self-sufficient, but it is our commitment to learn to love as an adult, to understand the difference between asking and demanding, accepting that the other may not have or not wanting to give us what we need today, and learn the difference between giving up and sacrificing ourselves.
All philosophers, thinkers, and therapists in history have created their own definition of love. Even I, without being any of that, have mine:
Whether or not this definition fits within you and determines your way of relating, the truth is that managing not to depend on others is, without a doubt, one of the great challenges that we daily fight for a full life, that is to say, of those that we pretend to be happy; of those who know that not declaring themselves pending the other’s gaze, their approval or their applause, has costs, and that we are willing to pay them, although they are not cheap at all.
He who loves in freedom will always be accused, by those who still travel dependent spaces, of being arrogant, foolish, cruel or aggressive, in the midst of reproach for being antisocial, selfish and even unloving.
A SAD TALE ABOUT LOVE
Once upon a time, on the outskirts of a town, a huge and beautiful tree lived giving those who came to it the coolness of its shade, the scent of its flowers and the incredible song of the birds that nested in its branches.
The tree was loved by all, but especially by the children, who climbed up the trunk and swayed among the branches with their complacent complicity. Although the tree loved people, there was a boy who was its favorite. He always appeared at dusk, when the others were leaving.
“Hello, little friend,” said the tree, and with great effort it lowered its branches to the ground to help the child climb, also allowing him to cut some of its green shoots to make a crown of leaves, even if the tear hurt a bit. The boy swayed eagerly and told the tree about the things that happened to him daily at home.
Almost overnight, the boy became a teenager and stopped visiting the tree. Time passed and suddenly, one afternoon, the tree saw him walking in the distance and called him with joy and enthusiasm:
“Friend Come, come closer. How long have you been here. Climb up and let’s chat.
“I don’t have time for stupid things,” said the boy.
“But we enjoyed so much together when you were little”.
—I didn’t know before that money was needed to live, now I’m looking for money. Do you have money to give me?
The tree was a little saddened, but quickly recovered.
“I don’t have money, but I have my branches full of fruit.” You could go up and take some, sell them, and get the money you need.
“Good idea,” said the boy, and climbed the branch that the tree gave him to climb like when he was a boy. And he plucked all the fruits from the tree, including those that were not yet ripe. He packed some burlap bags with them and went to the market. The tree was surprised that his friend did not even say thank you, but deduced that he would have an urgency to arrive before the buyers closed. Ten years passed before the tree saw its friend pass again. He was already an adult.
“How big you are,” he said excitedly. Come, go up like when you were a child, tell me about yourself, how are you feeling?
You don’t understand anything, since I’m going to climb. What I need is a house. Could you give me one?
The tree thought about it for a few minutes.
“No, but my branches are strong and springy.” You could make a very sturdy house out of them. How about?
The young man ran out with his face lit up. An hour later, with a saw, he cut each of its branches, both dry and green. The tree felt pain, but did not complain. He didn’t want his friend to feel guilty.
The tree was silent until the pruning was finished and then he saw the young man walk away expecting a look or a gesture of gratitude that never came.
With its trunk bare, the tree dried up. He was too old to regrow branches and leaves to feed him. Maybe that’s why, because he was already old, when he saw it coming, years later, he only said:
Hello there. What do you need this time?
I want to travel. But what can you do? You no longer have branches or fruits that can be used to sell, as before.
“What does it matter, son,” said the tree, “you can cut my trunk. with it, you may be able to build a canoe to travel the world at your leisure.”
“Good idea,” said the man.
Hours later he returned with an ax and cut down the tree. He made his canoe and left.
Only the small stump at ground level remained of the old tree. They say that the tree is still waiting for its friend to return to tell him about his journey.
He does not realize that he will not return. The boy has grown up, but sadly he has become a man of those who never go where there is nothing to drink. The tree waits, empty, although it knows that it has nothing more to give.
WANTING WITHOUT DEPENDING ON THE PARTNER
The tree and the man in the story show very different forms of love.
In any case, there will be different ways of loving, and these ways of expressing what I feel will depend more on who I am than on how much I want.
There will be good and healthy loves, which are those felt by those with good and healthy hearts. And there will also be unhealthy loves, that of the incapable, that of the manipulators, that of the possessive, that of the dependents, that of those who never realized that the greatest value of someone being appears when one realizes that That I could choose to be gone
Perhaps what has been said could be synthesized by establishing that those who have learned to love do not depend on the person they love, but neither do they allow her to depend on them, because they know that on either side of the chain, the slave and the master are victims. slavery and reject it outright. Those who know and feel true love give themselves without forgetting their right to set limits and they pretend to be loved in the same way.