Difference between Love and Obsession

Difference between Love and Obsession

Love. As much as people think they know ‘love’ and have experienced it, the truth is that it is very, very rare. In fact, it is one of the most confused and ‘mis-understood’ feelings in the world. Hatred, jealousy, envy, anger: easy to understand and infer. But love… how does one know that it is love… and not like? not attraction? not obsession?

It is really sad when people mistake their feelings of ‘anything-but-love’ for love. It not only creates heart-breaks, break-ups, fights, arguments, separation, divorce, but it causes such low-level emotions of revenge, resentment, anger, egotism and violence. But more than anything, more than the likings, crushes, attractions, what is saddest is the ‘love’ which is in reality an ‘obsession’.

Obsession is strong, its reason being addiction. In obsession, you do not love the person, you need the person- for your own self. Obsession is one of the most selfish and cruel emotions amongst mankind. It has only to do with the self, with the ego and has not a trace of compassion or kindness. Obsessive love kills. It harms. It seeks revenge if the self is not placated continuously. Obsession is a disease…

Once a boy liked a girl and grew obsessive about her. The young girl was still unsure about her feelings for him beyond liking and friendship, and therefore never committed to him. But the boy, who was otherwise a nice regular guy, popular with friends, was blind to everything else other than his need for her and the sense of achievement in getting her. With time, when the girl realised that she did not love him, she told him so. Instead of accepting her truthful admission, he tried to hurt her. He grew into a rage and became vindictive. All the love he claimed for her vanished into thin air in a single moment. The strangeness of it didnt matter to him. What inkled him was his hurt ego. He cared no more of the girl’s welfare or her happiness. He sent threats to her and her friends. He hacked her email accounts and messed up her social networking pages. He raged and ranted.

All this made the girl sad and disillusioned-not angry, for she had been his friend in the past, and tried to understand him in her simple heart. But she could not make sense of such hatred from someone who had professed his love for her so fervently. Her faith in love broke forever. The story has a sad ending because soon enough the girl died, never knowing that it was not love that failed, but the foolishness and immaturity of a person. The boy was only obsessed with her; there was no love. We dont know what happened to the boy after the girl died. Whether he forgave her in her death, or forgave himself in his realisation of the truth at last.

In true love, you live for the other person. You wish for the other person’s happiness, irrespective of whether that person loves you back or not, even if the love is unrequited and that person loves somebody else instead. True love is loving without selfish thoughts. When you truly love somebody, your whole existence is focused on making that person happy, your life revolves around him, and your every dream includes him and his smile. You realise and understand that you are born to be with him and for him. You instinctively know that you are soulmates and your heart aches for the other person. You are willing to give up every material and shallow pleasure of life, if it brings about even a little more happiness to the other person, although it may bring pain upon you. You realise that every passing moment just makes your love deeper, stronger and more generous. You become a better human being because you are fulfilled in your life like nothing else in the world can be.

But it happens so many times that couples declare that they love each other, when in fact they do not. What they feel at their inner-most sanctums is possessiveness, ownership and an urgent need to guard this property of theirs, and feed their egos. In their relationships, there is passion, pleasure, self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement- all quite short-lived and transient. And always, never peace. That sense of peace and bliss which comes only to soulmates in their love. For the rest, it is always a searching, always a seeking of the answers, always a compromise at a crossing.

http://remaindersofalife.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/difference-between-love-and-obsession/