How many beliefs about love are worth their upkeep and defense? Many beliefs rest on circumstances that must change, after all, that is what circumstances do. When we seek particular ‘results’ we turn our lovers into a means to an imagined end and measure success or failure accordingly.
Why should we adapt our beliefs to the facts around us when we can try to manipulate people instead? When we manipulate, we tempt lovers to lie to us, if only a lie of omission, so they can have some peace. When we emotionally coerce our lovers, we invite them to view us with contempt. Using power on our lovers also leads to every kind of quackery and folk remedy that teaches us how to: Get what you want from your lovers by doing such and such. Our idea that if we just ‘do it right’ we will achieve our end, leads to profitable industry’s like fake penis grow pills, cosmetic surgery, psychics, relationship ‘experts,’ divorce lawyers, questionable psychology, and wedding planners. The cost is foolish if the beliefs upon which these means are based are untrue.
In love, we can make our discovery of the facts easy, or we can make it hard. The question is, are our beliefs of love realistic? Let’s begin by asking ourselves this question: is it my job as a lover to sustain any partners beliefs about themselves? In other words, are we obliged to support their ego(s)? If the answer is no, we shouldn’t expect our lovers to support our egos in return. Now with the answer to this question in mind, let’s look at all ideas about love and see how many are left intact.
Ever has the human race been duped into adopting beliefs, not because of their truth, but because we learned the beliefs were respectable. “Why not look to friendship instead of beliefs, as a foundation for our love affairs?”