LOVE…AS A VIRTUE

“Just remember the world is not a playground, but a schoolroom. Not a holiday, but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.”—Barbara Jordan. The strongest of all forces, shields, tools of wisdom, virtues, principles, wealth and treasures in this world is love! I thought of writing about love in its truest sense, which sadly, as years advance, most of us are either disregarding its value, distorting its meaning or in the least, ignoring it. I would love to remind us that even the wisest of men, the strongest, the most knowledgeable and the wealthiest survive because of love! Love is more than just a word whose actual definition has never really been found, not even by ‘history’s greatest thinkers’. It is a virtue whose touch in our hearts makes us better than lost wanderers in life’s pathways of fulfillment, contentment and self worth. Where love isn’t the driving force, we’ll not find enough reason or motivation for doing what we wake up each day to do. As long as your cause is right and as long as you have to affect, manage, communicate with or influence people around you in, you need lots of love to be able to effectively reach these people through your role. About most of us distorting of love’s meaning, I must say even if I’m not a specialist, I do believe, through critical observation, that many of us base our love on different things which don’t last or aren’t worthwhile. For example; many of us youth, base our love for others on; recognition and appreciation from them, how well they prove themselves to us and basically what others have to offer us. I’m almost sure some adults have got a similar principle where they view things in light of what will benefit them. Whatever the case, the true meaning of love is somewhere out there and the one thing I can bet on is that whatever it is, it’s not about what we get, it’s most importantly about how much we give. For what you get blesses you alone and how much you give, blesses the world! Love is like the way you wake up each morning and like an electric wave, your love is contagious! I’ll sum it up in these few wise words from Henry Ward Thoreau, “Of all earthly music, that which reaches furthest into heaven is the beating of a truly loving heart.” hozatash@yahoo.com