(This article was published in the Century City News on April 17, 2012)
No matter who tries to tell you different, love at first sight is a myth. Love is not something that just happens, and building relationships that last a lifetime takes work. They don’t just spring into being, but they do grow like flowers if you give them what they need.
Just as love lies in everyone’s heart, every seed contains the flower it may become when given the right conditions. For a flower, those conditions include water, oxygen, sunlight and nutrients. Give a seed the right proportion of sunlight and dark, the right amount of water and a nutrient-rich growing medium and you’ll be rewarded with a strong, healthy plant that flowers and sets more seed. A plant can grow without the optimal mix of those conditions, but a lack of any one of them will result in a stunted plant, or one that is all stem and no leaves or one that wilts without ever flowering.
Love is no different. It requires specific conditions to blossom and set seed. Those conditions include trust, faith, honesty and respect. If you don’t provide each of those conditions for your relationship, you’ll still have a relationship and you may have something resembling love. But just like a plant deprived of sunlight or water will grow stunted and crooked, so a relationship without faith and respect and trust will never fulfill its potential.
Of the four qualities that help nurture love, the most important is respect. Love cannot exist without respect. It’s a prerequisite. Relationships without respect are unhealthy and harmful to the persons involved in them. When you respect another, you listen to them and consider their needs and desires and work to earn their respect. All of those things are vital to growing health relationships.
Many people exist under the misconception that respect is something that must be earned. In fact, respect is something that should be given freely. Unless you are open to respect, you’ll be shutting out any possibility of allowing love to grow to its fullest potential. If you only respect those who have earned your respect, you could be closing out many possibilities for loving others.
Like love, trust, honesty and faith also depend upon respect to grow strong and health. These four pillars of love lean upon each other and together, they create an arbor on which love can climb and grow and flower.
If you want love to flower in your life, if you want to build relationships that last for a lifetime, practice respect. Learn to respect everyone around you for the simple fact that they are, like you, a person.
About Dr. Jackson:
A veteran of 25 years of business ownership experience. A member of the United States Naval Submarine Service from 1979 to 1985. Founder and Chairman of G.E. Jackson & Associates, Inc., as well as River Eagle Media Group, LLC www.rivereaglemedia.com and The Examples of Excellence Foundation, Inc. www.examplesofexcellence.org And a member of Rotary International. A lover of life, nature, people, and the positive light in each and every one of God’s greatest creation - Humanity!
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