HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO FIND ROMANTIC LOVE? (PP16)
Here’s sequel 16 of my Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” (from Chapter 2: NEEDS)
You might be wondering how you’re supposed to find your soul mate when, on one hand, Maslow and Max-Neef declare love and affection and sex to be important needs, while on the other hand, you’re not supposed to be needy and scare off anyone who’s not of a mind to serve as your rescuer. That’s a darn good question, with a fairly simple answer.
If we all had identical upbringings during which we successfully satisfied all of our needs, progressed in an orderly fashion up Maslow’s hierarchy, and dodged serious mental problems, we’d all enter the find-a-mate marketplace on equal footing where needs are concerned.
But that’s a huge, probably impossible, “if.” We’re not all sitting atop a solid brick foundation; most of us are missing a brick or two. For instance, those of us who grew up in poverty may not have had all of our safety needs satisfied. As a result of not having much money, maybe our parents could not afford good health insurance coverage, so trips to the doctor were few and far between, which resulted in our not having received the medical care we needed at a critical time. As a result, our teeth are crooked and stained, or we’re obese, or we have acne scars, or we need thick glasses.
Maybe we wore unfashionable hand-me-downs instead of the latest trendy clothes that everyone else — or so it seemed — got to wear. Maybe we couldn’t participate in sports because we had to work every day after school. These circumstances certainly don’t make us unlovable, but they very well could cause us to have very low self-confidence, low self-esteem and low expectations — in short, unmet needs.
This is where self-knowledge comes in handy. If we understand ourselves and our perceptions, shortcomings and idiosyncrasies, we can learn to accept ourselves as we are and push forward with a healthy relationship, rather than focusing on our sorry past and expecting someone to assume the job of parent and fill the chinks and gaps in our faulty foundations.
Our goal should be to be able to state with confidence and sincerity: “I need you because I love you.” Can you see how this is very different from “I love you because I need you”?
To read my complete Epicurean Happiness Guidance “From Pain to Pleasure: The Proven Pathway to Happiness” go to http://stressfreedomguide.com/
intoxicated by liberation philosophy
“The best of life is but intoxication.” (Byron)
In my younger days it was vodka, whiskey, wine, sex, romantic love, theater, movies, literature, philosophy I got intoxicated with. Nowadays it’s mostly just literature and philosophy. Luckily I take up ideas slowly and forget them fast (some of my friends suggest that this could possibly be a retarded effect of all the alcohol I got intoxicated with in my younger days), so I can re-read pages again and again on human bondage and liberation by Epicurus, Michel Montaigne, Voltaire, Esther Vilar, Bertrand Russell, Kurt Vonnegut, Manfred Max-Neef and about a dozen of other authors experiencing every time almost the same thrill I felt when I first read them. Is this an anticipation of the beatitudes promised by Alzheimer ‘s?
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