OUR CONCEPTS ABOUT LOVE
LOVE IS NOT ONLY ABOUT HAPPINESS
THE TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS OF LOVE and the pursuit of “happy ever after” may actually end up making us miserable. In our most popular and enduring romantic stories, the ultimate reward for the protagonist is that they fall in love and the “happily ever after.” But does being in love really mean being happy ever after ? Does it mean being happy at all ? Can’t love be sad ? The question matters, especially to those of us who live through times and situation when happiness are unattainable. If we can’t be happy, reach ?that does automatically mean love is also out of reach ?
TO ANSWER THIS WE NEED to establish how deep is the connection between love and happiness in our current culture. It’s not just their narrative role: their joint appearance at the end of every romantic story. There is a broader ideology at works behind the scenes that binds love and happiness together as twin ideals in a romantic world view. This ideology is exemplified by 2 romantic truisms. The first truism tells us that a “GOOD LIFE” is a life that is happy and full of love. Wealth, fame, power and so on are irrelevant: only the contentment that comes with love and happiness matters. The 2nd truism asserts that a GOOD PERSON is a person who values love and happiness above all else. A good person pursues only these joys, eschewing the pursuit of wealth, fame, power, ETC. As truism, these ideas cut to the core of our romantic world view and they determine what we aspire to.
THE VALUES OF HAPPINESS IN OUR LIVES
VALUING HAPPINESS WAS ASSOCIATED with lower hedonic balance, lower psychological well-being, less satisfaction with life, and higher levels of depressions. If we want to be happy, we might be better off not making happiness our target. And yet, so many of us are—- or are supposed to be—- engaged in the pursuit of happiness. But if love and happiness are intertwined in this way, and if the pursuit of happiness is self-defeating, then what becomes of the pursuit of love ? Is that too, doomed to failure ? We need to see love in a different way that distinguish it apart from happiness—- and especially from the romantic “ HAPPY EVER AFTER. “
THJINKING ABOUT LOVE AS EUDAIMONIC( good spirited ) in this original sense, enables us to ask what it could mean to love in a good-spirited way. Sadness and anger serves to keep us safe, and alert us when things are going wrong. On the romantic conception of love, you’re supposed to be happy ever after—- if you’re not, all is lost.
EUDAIMONIC LOVE AND HAPPINESS
CRUCIALLY, EUDAIMONIC LOVE also allows for growth and change, and change may include walking away when a relationship is no longer functioning in a good-spirited way. This is key, because the romantic conception of love does not allow for this. On the contrary, we are supposed to stay with our so-called “soulmate” forever—whatever they may do to us and whomever they may become.
FOR REASONS OF SAFETY AND WELL-BEING, the shift from romantic to eudaimonic conception of love is important at anytime. Yet, it is particularly necessary for living in the world as it is now. To be sad, and even heart broken, does not one “CANNOT” love—- one’s partner, one’s family, one’s country, even humanity. BUT TO APPRECIATE WHAT IS LOVE UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO LIVE WITHOUT ANY PROMISES OF A ” HAPPY EVER AFTER. ” INSTEAD, WE MUST LEARN HOW TO INSPIRE EACH OTHER AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER’S MEANINGFUL PROJECTS. WE MUST LEARN TO BE A GOOD DAIMONS TO ONE ANOTHER.
Relationship goals 