by Garry Spotts

Created on: July 21, 2009   Last Updated: July 23, 2009

"Love!" what does the word mean today? According to popular thought it means a great many things from sexual intercourse to a casual greeting, "I luv ya, man!", tossed at groups of people or a friend as you part company.

We are fond of the phrase, "I fell in Love." The challenge with this idea is that Love is arbitrary and something that happens to you. Can you fall in love? The idea of "falling" implies the absence of intent. People fall by accident.

You may drop on purpose, but you always fall by accident. You may consider this discussion a waste of words, a useless intellectual exercise. I contend that the idea of falling in love, divorces you from the reality of your purposeful intent. The phrase, "Fall in Love" is an excuse to be reckless in our relationships and provides an escape clause for us when we choose to exercise it.

More than excusing people from the responsibility of choosing wisely whom they invest their feelings in, "Falling in Love" also provides us a license to quit our commitments when we arbitrarily "Fall Out of Love".

Regardless of how you characterize your intimate relationships, each one of them is a decision. Every time you kiss, it is an act of willful intent. Every time you experience a partner sexually, it is an act of willful intent. Infidelity is an act of intent. Infidelity is so often described as an "accident" that it has assumed an accidental character in the minds of most people, except the one who is betrayed by it.

What is TRUE LOVE?

True Love is a decision! Love is a willful act of valuing someone so highly that it excludes others from enjoying the same benefits of your relationship reserved for the person you purport to love. In reality, "Love" is an investment of oneself in another person with the hope of realizing a return of "Love".

No one has more value to you than you choose to give them. Therefore, you can only love a person to the degree that you have invested value in that person. Love is a conscious decision to disregard the faults of a beloved. Love is a conscious decision to act in a fashion that causes your beloved to feel the value you place in them.

Is this article mere "Word Play"? No, it is a call to act and live responsibly in all of your relationships.

Live responsibly:

Stop deceiving yourself into believing that you are "falling out of love" with someone. You are acting on a conscious decision which you have made to withdraw the value you placed in that person.

The challenge is that every

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