What is Love?

If I were to write a book about the Principles of a Happy Marriage--assuming someone out there would want to read romance advice from an academic economist--I would definitely include a section or two about what is love.

I understand that every individual is different and has unique needs. Therefore, every pairing of individuals and thus every marriage is also unique. Nevertheless, I believe that several fairly universal principles will apply to making any relationship successful:

Communication
Respect
Patience
Forgiveness

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The most important principle of a happy marriage is love. Love is caring for another person such that we genuinely want what is best for them. When we love someone, we want them to be happy, content, and to have peace.

There are at least two ways to love someone:

Passive Love: while we are busy with our own struggles, we silently hope that they are happy, content and at peace.

Active Love: we specifically dedicate some of our own life energy to helping this person to be happy, content, and at peace.

The kind of love that makes for a happy marriage is Active Love, though passive love is important in a world where our time and abilities are limited.

More accurately, working toward a happy marriage involves being willing to sacrifice all that you have in order to help your spouse to be safe, happy, and to have peace--even when they are not all in.

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1. This means that no matter what your spouse does or does not do for you or for your marriage, it is your responsibility to make sure that they get from you that which is best for them.


2. This also means that a large portion of your life energy is going to be devoted to learning about your spouse.
   Research, Research, Research.
   In order to provide what is best, you need to figure out what that is. This is not an easy task. Even the seemingly most simple person is a complex puzzle. It takes more than a lifetime to figure any one person out, so you'd better get started now....and keep at it.

I hope you find my thoughts helpful.  Please comment and/or respond somehow if you have other thoughts about this sort of thing. 

I passively love you all.

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Oh, hey. What's this blog doing here?

Wisdom and Understanding

I had a thought today about wisdom, and what it means to be wise. It was sparked by the following statement of the prophet Abinadi, from the Book of Mormon:

Ye have not applied your hearts to understanding; therefore, ye have not been wise.

(for more information on Abinadi, see chs. 11-17 of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon.)

This statement implies that in order to be wise (by Abinadi's definition), one must apply his or her heart to understanding.

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Do you want to be wise in Relationships?
                                             Self-fulfillment? 
                                               Career success? 
                                                 Politics? 
                                                   Religion?

Keep in mind that if we are not wise, then we are fools.

The above observation leads to a sort of wisdom self-check. If we wonder whether we are wise or foolish with respect to a certain matter, we can ask ourselves:

• How important is it to me to truly understand this?
• Have I truly applied myself to fully grasping what is going on here?
• What can I still do to possibly understand this better?

This can apply to anything in our lives that is important to us. 

I do not intend to imply here that if we apply ourselves then we will definitely be wise. But it is important to note that if we are not truly applying ourselves, then how can we ever expect to be anything other than a fool?

This is personally important to me because in many cases, even if I do not care to be an expert in a certain area, the last thing I want is to be perceived as a fool (which in many cases is a weakness, not a strength).

What are your thoughts?

It's all about the children

I came across this quote today, (Thanks Heidi):

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

-Frederick Douglass

Well said.

I have often thought about this principle in terms of stuff and things:  an ounce of maintenance is worth a pound of repairs. But I have never really applied it to people in quite this way, and oh how much more important are the people!

I am old enough now to have had at least a cursory level of experience with broken people. It is sad for me to see people hurting others or themselves when I am fairly certain that the root cause of such pain-inflicting is often external. And while efforts to ease suffering are noble and necessary, I often wish that we (or I , or whoever) could do more to prevent the pain.

This is a big reason why I believe that it is crucial to focus some attention to helping our children grow up into happy adults that know how to "inflict" happiness on others; some important principles include service, kindness, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, etc. It is much easier to learn these principles when we are young humans than when we are fully grown.


THE CRAYON BOX THAT TALKED from tim webb on Vimeo.

One caveat and discussion question: This principle has been repeatedly used by both well-meaning and nefarious men to attempt to force many young people (particularly those who have a natural disposition toward people-pleasing or authority-respecting) into aligning themselves with particular ideologies. This approach to child-rearing has had success I believe because the principle in the above quote is true.

How can we apply this principle to help our children become the type of people who influence happiness, without using force or coercion?

The solution

Can't say it enough.