There is a quote I love that applies to all aspects of my life where my patience is tested. It's by Lao Tzu who said, "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."
Lao was a philosopher and his philosophy makes sense! Our generation waits for nothing by choice. Nature tells our impatience to shove it. We’re made to wait regardless and only through hindsight does peace come to explain the wait and bring clarity to the agony we experience in waiting for something to happen.
For many of us, we spend weeks, months, even years waiting for love. We wonder where he or she is? We wonder why they haven’t found us yet (or us them) and we wonder when they’ll come knocking.
For the most part I agree that patience is necessary and all that is natural comes into place without our external influence but that doesn't stop nature from perplexing us. Weeds still spread within the earth, seeds are sown, we plough through old weeds to start anew, new trees sprout and I'm not nearly scientific enough or stupid enough to pretend to try to explain ecosystems but somehow everything in the world works together, grows together, exists together to help another’s survival.
While all that is natural exists to keep us going I can't help think of the nature vs. nurture debate when it comes to love. Weeks ago I overheard a conversation where two people argued over whether or not people fell in love. One argued that nobody simply falls in love it is a conscious choice.
If its a conscious choice then it's more meritorious because you're mentally willing to accept the changes that will come with the partnership, your wits are about you and beyond your resistant thoughts (I don't want to call it better judgement) you submit to that desire to pursue the desirable. I tend to side with this argument because it means that love is something we can all continually work on if we accept the choice is in fact our own from the very beginning.
When we exclude ourselves from the decision making process and submit our minds and bodies to science and butterflies, then feelings permissibly fly out as quickly as they fly in. In accepting that our body, mind and heart succumbs to another’s power involuntarily and separate to our consciousness, we open the door to a river deep, mountain high stretch of excuses that exempt us from responsibility. I hate that. I’m all about owning your actions.
Science suggests that blinding hormones induced by passionate love(making) dissipate and are responsible for that euphoria that most couples feel when they’re in love or when they’re intimate. The chemicals that imbalance our brains and fuel our hearts (adrenaline, dopamine, norepinephrine, phenylethlamine and a whole bunch of others that I can’t spell or pronounce) fluctuate in strengths through the period of your relationship. Slowly they remove your blinders and rather than extending that period wherein you are stupefied by love, it halts it and forces you to think rationally. This is where problems begin. Couples see each other differently believing a partner has changed when in fact, it’s likely they haven’t at all – the chemicals have just worn off and it takes more than what is ‘natural’ to sustain the connection you have.
So when nature shoves nurture aside, relationships expire. When nurture partners with nature, relationships are more likely to survive.
I’m yet to experience love so I’m happy to be proven wrong but I think it’s always a decision to put someone else first. It’s always a decision to say yes or no to a date. It’s a choice to keep seeing each other. It’s a choice to give your heart away. You may lust after many. You may connect with several people in the world. You can even love them but you can only be in love with one person at a time. It is simply too much work to otherwise divide your heart. When we focus on nurturing we can only fully invest in one true love. The second we stop nurturing what was once natural is when we falter in our treatment of those we have loved and cracks in our love shack tear the foundations of what we have built.
Lao was right, nature does not hurry, so love comes when it’s supposed to but all is accomplished when people nurture what is natural. As such, there is no such thing as falling in love, just an agreement to keep working on it.
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