What is love?

Is love a feeling or emotion or a state of mind or an attitude? When someone says they love you, what do they mean? And when you tell someone you love them, what do you mean? Perhaps the right question should be how do you know you are loved or that you love someone? Check what you know with the description of love below.

Love is patient. When one is patient, they stay calm and do not get annoyed when something is taking a long time or when someone is not doing what they want them to do. So when you get someone exercising patience without getting angry or upset with you, they probably love you.

Love is kind. This is being gentle, caring and helpful. Kindness involves being friendly, considerate and generous. You cannot profess your love for someone when you are constantly mean to them. That is not love.

It does not envy. Envy is when one has a feeling of discontentment or resentfulness caused by someone else’s qualities, possessions or luck of it. There is no room for resentfulness or discontentment for someone when there is love. One quick way to identify envy is when there is a lot of fault finding; always seeing something wrong with the other person.

It does not boast. Boasting is when someone is always talking about something very proudly in a manner that other people find offensive or irritating. When someone professes to love you, there is no way they are going to talk about it in a manner that will make other people offended or irritated. Otherwise, when they talk about you, people should feel the love that they have for you and be happy for you.

It is not proud. The pride referred to here is the kind which someone feels they are better or more important than other people. Think about it, how can someone love you if they feel they are more important than you? Or, how can you love someone if you feel you are better than them?

It does not dishonor others. Dishonor is the act or behaviour which damages the good reputation of another person. Love is the complete opposite of this. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs. Self-seeking is selfishness. When you truly love someone, when they wrong you, you forgive and forget. You do not bring up what they did three years ago when you disagree.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Woe to those who call good evil and evil good! Be careful. Is what you are proclaiming to be love good or evil? The society today has corrupted good and frequently desires evil.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres. This is the art of love; Never giving up. Always hoping things will get better, always trusting. Remove trust from the equation and love is dead. Protection is a natural instinct. When a man loves a woman, they will naturally protect them, when a mother loves her child, she will effortlessly protect him/her.

Love never fails. There is no failure in love because God is love.