Your emotional well-being is determined by your ability to get along with, and love, others. Love is an essential requirement for emotional health. It is almost as important for physical health. When you love someone, and are loved in return, every aspect of your life improves. You recapture the joyousness and zest for life that is your birthright. You feel optimistic and confident that you can handle anything that life has in store for you.
More than one hundred years ago, Ralph Waldo Trine wrote: “Not to love is not to live, or it is to live a living death.”78 It is natural to seek love, but many people forget that they need to love before being loved.
Of course, love is never easy. Arguments and disagreements occur in even the happiest of marriages. Movies and television programs frequently present impossible representations of “true love.” Many people feel unable to live up to these unrealistic expectations.
Some people expect to gain more from a love relationship than they are prepared to give. This is usually the case with love between a parent and child. The child receives more love than he or she is able to give in return. The parent’s reward is watching the child grow up to become a happy, successful adult. However, this unbalanced situation is not a satisfactory basis for a long-term relationship between two adults.
I believe everyone has the capacity to love. However, human beings are complex organisms and love is sometimes restricted by beliefs, attitudes, and feelings that date back to early childhood. This could be described as emotional immaturity. People who are badly affected by these factors find it hard to love. They need to learn to deal with their anxieties and immaturity, and then balance this with their instinctive need to love.
Magical symbols of love and romance have been used for thousands of years to help people find and maintain the right relationship. I hope you will use the information in this book to achieve lasting happiness with the perfect partner for you.
78. Ralph Waldo Trine, In Tune With the Infinite (London, UK: George Bell and Sons, 1899), 101.