Love: An Act of Will, Not of the Heart

“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” –Plato

“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” –Willa Cather

“Love does not make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” –Franklin P. Jones

“Love is like a quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open, and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away.” –Dorothy Parker

“The story of love is not important- what is important is that one is capable of love. It perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.” –Helen Hayes

Love. A word of so many meanings. It is the most frequently used topic for poetry, short stories, and quotation books. Even blog entries are filled with the ones about love! But is there such thing? Who discovered it then? Is it merely psychological or is it just a feeling that only a feeling can understand?

Love is not supposed to be defined. It is supposed to be felt.

“Love is like a rosary, full of mysteries.” That is one of the corniest quotations about love. But admit it. It is indeed true. There are many things love can do, even mysteries or miracles. But why is love associated with the heart? That question, I cannot answer. A heart is a mere organ pumping blood for proper circulation of the body. But where is the love in that process?

I do believe that love is indeed an act of will, not of the heart.

A quotation from Ursula Le Guin says that “Love not just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” Again, love is an act of will, not of the heart. It is not something that exists without the will of the person. It has to be made, created and supposed to be felt. It needs two parties to share the same feeling. They do special things for each other. They nurture each other, and likewise, nurture love, indeed an act of will.

Another saying by Walter Lippman for me holds true, that “Love endures only when the lovers love many things together and not merely each other.” Love is a kind of feeling that is freely felt by a person towards another. But I agree with the quotation stated. Love endures and lasts when the lovers love many things together and enjoy each other’s company a lot. They not merely love each other but all the activities they do together, one thing that proves my point that love is indeed an act of will.

There are a lot of things which support the fact that love is an act of will. Even sacrifices are done for love. Like our Savior, Jesus Christ, he suffered and died for us. All because of his act of will, the act of love.

Indeed, loving is a choice we make. It is up to us whom to love, what to do for love, or basically, if we would love or not. It is supposed to be our choice, our will.

All things in this world, I suppose, are act of will, not merely of any pumping organ…