lovetrustandangels

Love is difficult to define. How do you avoid confusing it with infatuation or lust? Philosophers and psychologists both have attempted to define love, or at least its difference from infatuation and lust. If you are looking to find love, the following observations may be helpful.

Say it. When you utter the words "I Love You", do they carry with them the desire to show someone you love them or do they carry with them what you want to feel.
Empathize. Put yourself in someone else's shoes. Rather than impose your own expectations or attempt to control them, try to understand how they feel, where they come from, and who they are.
Love unconditionally. If you cannot love another person without attaching provisos, then it is not love at all, but deep-seated opportunism. Your interest is not in the other person as such, but rather in how that person can enhance your experience of life. If you have no intention of ameliorating that person’s life, of allowing that person to be themselves and accepting them as they are, and not who you want them to be, then you are not striving to love them unconditionally.
Expect nothing in return. That doesn't mean you should allow someone to mistreat or undervalue you. It means that giving love does not guarantee receiving love. Try loving just for loving's sake.
Realize it can be lost. If you realize that you can lose the one you love, then you have a greater appreciation of what you have. Think how lucky you are to have someone to love.

Trustis both and emotional and logical act. Emotionally, it is where you expose your vulnerabilities to people, but believing they will not take advantage of your openness. Logically, it is where you have assessed the probabilities of gain and loss, calculating expected utility based on hard performance data, and concluded that the person in question will behave in a predictable manner. In practice, trust is a bit of both. I trust you because I have experienced your trustworthiness and because I have faith in human nature.

We feel trust. Emotions associated with trust include companionship, friendship, love, agreement, relaxation, comfort.

There are a number of different ways we can define trust. Here are the dimensions of trust and consequent definitions.

Predictability

It is a normal part of the human condition to be constantly forecasting ahead. We build internal models of the world based both on our experiences and what others tell us, and then use these to guess what will happen next. This allows us to spot and prepare for threats and also make plans to achieve our longer-term goals.

The greatest unpredictability is at 50%; a reliable enemy can be preferable to an unpredictable friend, as at least we know where we are with them.

Exposed vulnerabilities

When we trust other people, we may not only be giving them something in hope of getting something else back in the future, we may also be exposing ourselves in a way that they can take advantage of our vulnerabilities. If I buy a car from you and I do not know a good price, you can lie to me so you get a better bargain. If I tell you in confidence about the problems I am having with work, you could use this to further your own career at my expense.

Although the threat of retribution or projected feelings of guilt can counteract your temptation to abuse my exposed vulnerabilities, if you succumb I still get hurt and may still end up with the shorter stick. For our transaction to complete successfully, I must be able to trust that such agonies will not come to pass.

So what?

So learn about trust, how it works and how to build it. If you do it well, other people will give you the earth. If you betray them, they will hunt you to the ends of the earth.

Surely, we all know what angels are. They are beautiful, baby-faced, pastel-wearing, fairy-wing toting, guardian messengers that reside in the heavens. They are supernatural, superhuman, saintly, heavenly, fragile, innocent protectors of our souls. They are the embodiment of purity, of sanctity, of magic and of fate. They are caring and they are forever youthful. They have hearts of gold and carry pixie dust. They can deliver us from evil, fly, vanish without a moment's notice and likewise reappear—they have become immortalized through our favorite holiday movies, storybooks and bedtime stories, and are taught to sit prettily atop your Christmas tree. They are pondered on and painted in some of the most famous works of Renaissance and Medieval art; and just as there are good angels there are also those who are bad; namely the angel of death, Hell's Angels, and all three of Charlie' s Angels.

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Predictability

Exposed vulnerabilities

So what?