A/N: This was made as an entry for an essay writing contest at my school. The entry could be anything about love. Since this is not a typical essay on love, it didn't win (or maybe my writing was just plain lousy--I don't know). Anyhow,for warning, it's basically based on the Jewish POV but I tried to make it as general as possible. If you disagree with this,tell it to me gently (hehe).It's MY opinion anyway!:p

When Love Is Not For All
By Moeru H.

It doesn’t rip my heart, at all, that Eros missed hitting me with those instant love arrows that many had been a victim of every since he started business. Yes, wouldn’t it be nice to just wait patiently for that right moment where the right person will strike us with unexplainable jitters then immediately call it love? Ironically, something that came out of nowhere can easily sneak out from the scene without as much as a goodbye, leaving us loveless yet again. Not only does this notion take away our power to create and choose our own fate, but it also shuts the possibility that anyone can love everyone. Isn’t it a shame that our love system is being bogged down by how Eros limited our perception of that ‘thing’ that makes living worthwhile?

In the tradition of the idealistic Jews, love is defined as “the emotional pleasure of identifying virtues in another person”. When we look at it this way, we recognize our significant role in deciding what path to walk in life and, at the same time, everyone gets to love everyone. Isn’t love for all, after all? When we contain ourselves in loving a few circles of people and are satisfied with it, we are making a grave mistake in ignoring the vast opportunity we are given to experience how to be loved in ways we can never begin to imagine and to love with fulfillment beyond words.

A love for all is a love of sacrifice and selflessness, for it’s unrealistic to expect to be loved in return for every love we give. So, surely, when love for God only develops by the number of miracles He has performed for us, when marriage is treated as replaceable as shoes, when filial love depends on how parents indulge their children’s every whim, when friendship is dropped the same time people stop seeing each other, and when the basis of true love is measured by a play of a perverted version of baseball, then we are stripping our essence as humans in distorting the real meaning of love.

Whether it be as random as a help to a struggling hand of a stranger, the scolding of a father, a kiss of a wife to her husband, a phone call to a suicidal friend or even as immense as dying for national freedom, each is a facet of love that is as priceless as life itself that should never be overlooked. When we realize that the chance to grasp this complex pleasure we call love is all around us, we wouldn’t need Eros and his instant love arrows to wake us up from dreams of lovelessness.