Friday, February 01, 2013

In the name of love

The most clichéd question that any lover would have ever asked his love, ‘What can you do to prove your love for me?’ And the answers can be highly practical to highly filmy. The normal (clichéd, I mean) responses to this question are. ‘I can bring the stars for you’, ‘I can die for you’, ‘I can give you all the happiness in the world’ and on and on.

But what I can’t understand is, why does anyone need to prove their love? If you love someone, isn’t it supposed to show? Why does anyone ask you to do things for them? Like if you really love me, quit smoking. If you love me, don’t talk to your best friend because I don’t like him. If you love me, leave your parents. If you love me, get serious about your career. If you love me, turn vegetarian. The list is just endless.

And it is not even just on demand from the other person. We question ourselves too at times. We need to do things for this love of ours to prove to ourselves that we truly love him. (I mean come on, don’t you freakin know your own feelings?) And we will do things that we don’t know, that we aren’t comfortable with, that we have never done in life. We make an effort. We go out of our way. But why? Love is acceptance. So if this person loves me, why would he be happy if I change myself for him? Or why is he asking me to let go of something that is so important to me?

I think now-a-days, we have confused love with our egos. I am not saying that we have stopped loving people. I am not saying that in all of the above examples love does not exist. It does. But when you ask someone to prove their love. That’s when you have let your ego in, my friend.

Also, there comes the time when we fight. So now that I am upset, how do I show that to you? I don’t eat. I stay up all night. I don’t go out. I don’t talk to anyone. I sulk. And after I do all that, I make sure that you know that I have done that. I’m sorry that I sleep whenever we fight, knowing that you are angry with me. But that doesn’t mean I love you any less. I love you and I love you a lot.

So next time when someone asks you, ‘What can you do to prove your love for me?’ Simply answer, ‘I can stick with you for the rest of my life.’ And that is it. That is all I am gonna do for you. And that is all I am expecting from you and from myself.