I’m thinking…
I’m thinking that many times we go into love with the certainty that we already have the capacity required to carry it through. We assume that the mere fact that we feel so strongly about each other is enough energy to sustain us, so we go into our relationships expecting the Love to work itself out and perform magic. And when we no longer can see the result we expect, we assume that the love is no longer there.
I’m thinking that in many cases, the love is there, but we fail to get better at it. We fail to grow with the Love. We assume that the love is automatic, and by itself, it will work out magically. But if the stories we hear are ever anything to come by, then it seems we need to keep building our capacity to love.
I’m thinking of love as a job – like a full-time job, a duty, a responsibility, and a complete devotion. Something we choose and then wake up to, to do, and to groom. Something we do with reverence knowing there’s a benchmark, an expectation, and yes, with its reward. Something that gets us thinking, at the back of our minds, “how do I love this woman/man better?”
I’m thinking that Love is a skill that needs to be learned, one that requires refining and improvement. Like every other skill, we need to be students, ever-learning and ever-practicing. We need to allocate time for evaluation, improvement, learning, and relearning.
I’m thinking it will help if we have periodic reviews on our love, marriage, and family, see how we are faring, what our challenges are, and what we need to do.
I’m thinking it’s important we keep asking ourselves questions, evaluating our answers, and finding solutions to them.
How do you think we fared this month/quarter/year?
What was the most challenging part of our love and marriage in the last three months?
Do you feel I’ve communicated my love to you efficiently, recently? When? And why did it mean so much to you?
In what areas did we record the most success in parenting?
How do you think we fared in dealing with our daughter’s recent crisis?
What can we learn from how we both handled our last disagreements?
AmCan we sort out these issues ourselves, or do we need to see a professional?
And in some situations, rather than lash out at our partners, we can “babe, we’ll need to discuss this at the next review”.
I’m thinking that the beauty we want out of our love isn’t so impossible if we will become students and be humble enough to apply ourselves to the lesson our love will teach us. I’m hoping that with this, we can awaken to areas of our love that we have ignored and that most times have a deeper impact.
I’m thinking of how prepared I feel sometimes, and how I’ll still need to keep getting better, and in many ways, work together with my lover to improve on our love.
I am the ImisiOluwa; and tonight I’m thinking of love as a full-time job.
