According to M. Scott Peck, love is too deep to be understood within the framework of words.  Love has something to do with mystery.  One cannot exhaust its meaning.  But in today’s secular mind-set, love is confined within the domains of feelings or emotions.  Love has something to do with romance, attraction or sex.  I asked some friends and acquaintances about love and the answers varied according to their perspective and what they believe and hold true.  Obviously, relativity is prevalent in the common secular understanding of love.  For most people, love is a subject that always comes with interest; a topic too strong to resist that’s why I never had a difficulty finding a respondent for the “Am I in love?” self-analysis test.

My respondent’s initial reaction to the questions was one of rationalization.  He never thought that the analysis was deep and probing.  It revealed his value system and his perspective of love.  He described it as an “AHA!” experience for it enabled him to really look into himself and evaluate his feelings and thoughts about his present romantic relationships.  My respondent is in his mid twenties.  He has a girlfriend but at the same time meeting other girls whenever opportunity provides.  He reasoned that doing so would allow him to gauge whether he is really in love with his girlfriend.  He is sort of looking for the “right” partner that is to say that he is not yet sure of his present relationship.  Before giving him the test, I asked him about his love-life and he told me that he is looking for somebody who can take care of him, satisfy his needs and meet his expectations.  He wants to settle with a person whom he can rely on and turn to for support in whatever aspect of life. From this point of view it occurred to me that there is a real need to transform the popular secular belief about love or loving.  In a society with materialistic orientation, it is very common that “I” is the center of every relationship.  The “I” takes the spotlight.  During the conversation, I controlled myself from giving advices or opinions concerning his perspective on love and relationship.  I might end up sermonizing.  I just listened and allowed my respondent to express what he felt.  I hope that the self-analysis test would serve as an eye opener for him.  However, I gave him a copy of the test for him to ponder on from time to time. 

To gauge whether a person is in love or not based on today’s popular secular point of view is quite easy.  It appears that majority of today’s youth or young adults are mostly focused on the satisfaction of the self in terms of having a relationship.  Narcissism is prevalent in today’s culture.  I observed that majority of today’s young adults are jumping from one relationship to another, seeking for some form of satisfaction.  There is a great need for self-fulfillment and meaning .  I think this gesture is somehow an indication of interior emptiness.  In today’s trend, romance and relationship can be found in the internet or cyberspace.  Webcam to webcam interaction that leads to some kind of physical attraction that serves as a medium for finding “love”.  I wonder if one can find authentic love in this manner of relating.  Well, there are really exceptional few whom I have known to have found stable and fruitful relationships through this medium.  I was reading M. Scott Peck as a springboard for this reflection.  M. Scott Peck's new psychology of love is a real challenge for the secular mind-set.  It calls for a radical alteration of the society’s common understanding about love and loving.  Authentic love after all, is desiring the highest good of the person whom you loved without any condition. 

What an awesome post, Jay! This is the kind of topic I can really sink my teeth into; so many people today tend to look outside themselves for love, when what they're really looking for lies within. Materialism seems to be a marker of one's success in life - as well as an attractant for prospective partners - and that's just not the way love works. From this viewpoint, it's easy to see why so many relationships fail...

Have an awesome day, Jay, and thanks again for this fantastic post!

You can't give love when you don't have nothing to give. So fell first the love tank before giving up to others and everything will follow.