The Discipline Of Love

The Discipline of Love

Love is more than the sum of its parts. Is love an emotion? Of course. But love as an action is more than just expressing emotion.

When people show you love, you get all warm inside. That feeling will often motivate you to love in return. The problem is that if you wait for this feeling every time, you’ll rarely love others as often as you need to.

The mark of maturity is to show kindness and care for others no matter how you’re feeling. Parents soothing a crying baby at three in the morning certainly understand this. A wife betrayed by a cheating husband will find this notion much harder to swallow. But the principle remains the same.

The motivation to love must come from your discipline and commitment to the supreme value of personal relationship. In the end, knowing you’ve loved others well will make you feel far better than the finest poet could imagine.

When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.

—Abraham Lincoln