Selfless Love : Inner Peace
"What you loved to do used to define you - when you were a kid. It wasn't WHO loved you, it was WHAT you loved.. to do. "
When we were kids, we did what we loved. It didnt matter if our friends, relatives or parents didnt like what we did. We liked it, so we did it. Most of us didnt let outside opinions drive us, we didnt require that approval to enjoy ourselves or be happy. Some where we replaced that inner contentment, with the need for people and things. But living off those principles leave a sour residue of unfulfillment and depression.
When I first met my husband and things started getting serious he said that he knew I would love him when he felt like I "needed" him, and I told him that I knew I loved him because I "wanted" him. This became a huge deal in our life because.. well.. he was "need" driven.
Let me explain as this part gets a little tricky for people.
Need by definition states; expressing necessity or obligation. Want; is the desire for something.
To need, in my mind diminished the desire to want to continue to show up. Needing something for survival, needing someone for happiness, needing someone puts you in a place where you are incomplete without them.
I don't know about you, but I am not incomplete. I don't actually believe any of us are "incomplete".. broken - perhaps, working on ourselves - yes. But if you or I, or anyone on this planet... are not actually complete as a person, then how are we to love another person fully and in a healthy capacity?
The only place I am not fully accepted as myself is Facebook. I have a point so bare with me. My last name, the name I was born with, is Couture. But Facebook tells me that by filling out my legal name online, I am trying to create a business page over an actual personal account. I have even contacted them about these endlessly to which it is never resolved, to the point that even my cousins and brother who have married.. their spouses cant change their facebook name to their legal married name - the same reason populates for them. But I am digressing. Additionally, I did not take my husbands last name- the entire point of mentioning this. Something that over the many years together has become wildly controversial from people outside our relationship. But I am a person. And marriage is no longer about ownership.. which is why women changed their last names to begin with.
I am complete, independent, defined by what I love, and my character. It took a long time to shed the impulsive desires society tells me I "need" to be "happy".
As a person you have the capacity to be totally content as you are when you realize that you are enough for you.
But people still harp on my not taking his last name, on us needing each other, on society pressuring us into their unhealthy and captive ideals.
IN my marriage... I show up every single day, through the good times and the bad, I have created a family, I have created a life with my husband, who is equally complete but working on the shedding of his "need" programming.
Are we messed up? Do we have baggage? Are we healing and growing, changing habits and stopping generational cycles -- absolutely!
But that doesn't detract from the very principle of being complete, and wanting to be here with each other day in and day out.
SO be who you are, do what you love, show up for the people you want to, and want to show up just because.. not because you need them or something from them. Love wholly because loving someone has nothing to do with you, to love has everything to do with putting someone else on your radar, respecting them, supporting them, cherishing them, helping them complete their dreams, to love is to be selfless. And to be selfless, one must be complete.
This is incorrect. Perhaps in a wordly view, but marriage was once rooted in biblical traditions and so as marriage signifies the two flesh (man and woman) becoming one, so does the taking on of the man's name. I think it's a personal decision whether or not the woman decides to take the man's name. Indeed, many women decide to hold on to their names for many different reasons - and that is entirely acceptable. But it seems to me that this tradition is once again being hijacked by the feminist movement which explains why terms like "ownership" is being thrown around. I don't believe there is any evidence of a man owning his woman in western christian civilization. In islam, on the contrary, I think it's very clear that ownership of the woman is very real indeed. Which of course opens another can of worms and another conversation - the fact that their culture is simply not compatible with western civilization on a host of different issues. My two cents...
The tradition of the wife taking her husband's last name at marriage is not found in the bible. It didnt exist back then. It's a relatively modern invention. Back then women were defined by where they lived, who their kids were or who their husband was but last names simple did not exist. The bible issues no command for a woman to change her last name - therefore the notion to do so isn't biblical. Its cultural.
In western society women continue to change their names for personal reasons.
It should be noted that popularly people illustrate their union based on what you said, two flesh, man and woman becoming one, since the man was the head of household it was his job to nurture her and therefore the woman would take the husbands name.
And while most intentions start out pure-- and many remain so, it cannot be ignored that over the years a once innocent proposition became bastardized. I'm speaking historically here of course. This is in no way currently relative.
I am not a feminist. I'm actually, personally, against modern feminism .. for like you mentioned-- it has been hijacked. However, one doesn't have to look too far to find where the insinuation of ownership around a married woman is woven tightly into our history.
I do want to thank you for commenting! Genuinely! I agree with you on the hijacking of feminisms and religions like islam being incompatible with western civilization. And please don't confuse where I am coming from here, I am not demonizing all marriages and the taking of the mans last name, however, I am not ignoring that once upon a time women had no rights, no money, couldn't drive a car or be held responsible for more than running their home. We've come a long long way, and women are no longer viewed in such limiting capacities anymore which is why I don't actually understand western modern feminism. But I'm not going to ignore history as well.
The last name portion was just a teeny tiny part of that post though. I hope the rest wasn't lost on that difference of opinion.