You know on the info page of facebook where they have a spot for "favourite quotations"? Well I read one today that said "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". We've all heard it. It's attributed to both Alfred Lord Tennyson and Samuel Butler. "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". I don't know that I agree.
If you've never loved, you can't know what might be lost. If you've loved and lost there's a pretty good chance you'll carry a torch. I've done it. After a while you wish you hadn't taken that bite from the forbidden fruit.
Love is a strange master. You can lose the lover but not the love. You can lose love but not the lover. Staying with each other long past love's due date. I've done that too.
There's another quote on love I find interesting. "There is love of course...and then there's life...it's enemy". How often have relationships failed because the reality of day to day life gets in the way?
We too often confuse love with infatuation. Yes...done that one too. It sets off a pyrotechnic panorama in your brain worthy of Vesuvius. It's not true love. It's an obsession. And obsessions can be dangerous to both parties. You tend to forget the important things in your life like eating, sleep, jobs, family and friends. How many times have you had a friend you see all the time suddenly fall off the radar because they're in a new, all consuming relationship? Focus on your ardor and before you know it you're knee deep in lust. Once you discover the lust is a bust your friends have moved on without you.
I've never quite understood how you can profess you love someone, break up, and then claim to hate them. They've played with your emotions, betrayed your trust, they've turned love into hate. No, you have. If you can switch in on and off that quickly did you ever truly love that person? You may have been in love with the idea of being in love but were you in love with them?
G K Chesterson said "The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost". I don't agree with that either. That sounds like love out of desperation. Your hope is not to lose what you love. That's fear.
At best love, or atleast heading down that road, is a gamble. It's a high risk game. I know there are many, many couples who have rolled the dice and it's worked. My parents, for more than 60 years now. But not everyone can be that lucky.
Love consumes us. Our history is littered with love stories from the epic "Iliad" to an episode of "Dharma and Greg". Okay bad example. An episode of "The Bachelor".
"It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all"? I'm still wrestling with that. Is it worth the gamble? Well...as Ian Tyson sang in "Summer Wages"...."Never hit 17 when you play against the dealer..."
Always loved this one.....popular at weddings
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous,
it is not inflated, it is not rude,
it does not seek its own interests,
it is not quick-tempered,
it does not brood over injury,
it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.
St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 13:4
Forget love - I'd rather fall in chocolate! Sandra J. Dykes
Debs: Don't "candy" coat it, what are you driving at. Actually you're probably right. Chocolate all around. To quote Homer Simpson...."Hmmmmmmm....chocolate!"
Sounds like Paul got it right.
Rick I’ve been going through the stayed too long, infatuated with someone lost someone stages for the last year.
My wife and i stayed together for about 6 years longer than we should have.
I was infatuated with someone after we split and fell in love.
And lost that love.
I still love her but i lost her. She has her own issues and it could not work.
And I'm dam glad I took a chance and loved.
I may never feel anything like that again in my life but I’ll always have a memory of what i had .And regret for what might have been. But i really do think it was better to have loved and lost this time
james, I understand and I've been through much of the same you've been. Most of it a lot of years ago, some of it more recent. I'm still at a loss and have no answers. Just thinking out loud.
This could be discussed for hours. I agree with James that it is better to have felt the feeling of love then not to have felt it at all. Actually it also humbles, as it is an out of control feeling sometimes but when and if it ends and you come up for air you have learned something and softened around the edges. Children do it to you, as do lovers, you forget yourself for awhile. Putting someone ahead of yourself is not always a bad thing to have experienced.At least it wasn't for me.
Mary: Good to hear. You sound very grounded. Just some thoughts that came to mind when I first read the quote. Hadn't thought about that quote for years. Wondering out loud if it's valid.
For me - falling in love is one thing, staying in love is quite another. My daughter commented yesterday (she's a teenager and hasn't had the pleasure of falling in love yet) she said "It seems to me that more and more people are divorcing these days." I agreed with her - but I also pointed out that people are living longer - very few live out their lives with one person anymore - that we no longer feel we have to stay with someone when we no longer are in love - or have responsibilities to that person (ie when the kids are gone) - and then there's temptation - and we mere mortals are forever subjected to temptation. I've been in love - I've been in relationships where I don't love the person (and that's just incredibly sad not to mention lonely) - and I have grown and changed in both those relationships. I can understand how people would eshew love - it's the most painful experience we humans can experience. But I hope it happens to me again -for what is life without love? We might as well lie down and throw a blanket of dirt around us.
Tracy, nicely put.
You can gamble for matchsticks
You can gamble for gold
The stakes may be heavy or small
But if you haven't gambled for love and lost
Then you've never gambled at all
Moonlight Gambler by Frankie Laine
Very nice Chuck. By the way I know you sent me you're email address. I have have got it wrong. Send again please.
e-mail address is church@shaw.ca
Seems to me that when we search, we tend to settle. When we are relaxed, wham! it hits us. And then the holding on becomes the struggle. If I have learned one thing in my trials and tribulations, there is only one person that can be kept in check, that being me! Always treat and care for others as you would like to be in return and hopefully that simple remedy will work?
That was Sandra's line not mine...but I like it! Woo Hoo for chocolate!!!
Sorry Debs. The mind works in mysterious ways...sometimes mine doesn't work at all.
Fantastic article !
I have loved and have lost and have carried that love for a long time after. But, with time I was able to feel normal again. I heard this song and realized, yes I could have missed the pain....but I would have had to miss the dance.
The Dance"
Looking back on the memory of
The dance we shared 'neath the stars above
For a moment all the world was right
How could I have known that you'd ever say goodbye
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance
Holding you I held everything
For a moment wasn't I a king
But if I'd only known how the king would fall
Hey who's to say you know I might have changed it all
And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance
Yes my life is better left to chance
I could have missed the pain but I'd have had to miss the dance
That is beautiful! It was a great song. I believe he gets his girl at the end.
Thanks for adding that. Beautiful. Who does it and is it availavle?
Garth Brooks.
One of the biggest songs ever recorded!
I have heard that he wrote it for Trisha Yearwood. She was the love of his life and after marriage and children and divorce they were reunited and are married at this time.