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Love is patient; love is kind. This verse lists the Biblical implications of how love should be perceived, but among everything, it mentions that love isn’t self-seeking.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy; it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others; it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:4-5
When people are asked to define what love is, the answers are incredibly varied – safe for answers that come from quotations or universally acclaimed sentiments. However, love is a highly personal experience. How it’s defined depends primarily on how individuals experience it. It’s associated with many things people hold close to their hearts, often things that remind them of their person.
For others, love can be sweet, but it may also be bitter. It can take the form of the coffee their partners have ceaselessly prepared for them every morning. Or, it can be the warmest hugs they receive at the end of every day. Love is a lot of things. But if there’s one thing it isn’t, love isn’t self-seeking.
What Does It Mean When Love Isn’t Self-Seeking?
When envisioning what love is, people commonly fall into what the mainstream media feeds them. For so long, love has been the image of someone chasing after another. It’s the determination to seek what one desires, the relentless effort to show how one is worthy of another. It’s every grandiose gesture carried out all to receive another’s sweetest acceptance.
Throughout all of this, love has become equivalent to pining.
It’s setting one’s eyes on another character, one that’s deemed the apple of their eyes, the trophy to win over. Given all the sacrifices it’s been correlated with, love has become the chase and the triumph. It’s setting one’s goal as another person and never stopping until they’ve been achieved. Sure, this picture of love isn’t wrongly captured, but it also doesn’t capture its all-encompassing beauty.
Although people are taught to prioritize themselves and to chase what they want, when it comes to love, they’re reminded that not everything circles them. People may be naturally selfish, governed by their instincts for survival – their desires above anyone and everything else. But when it comes to love, they must not only think about themselves.
Love isn’t self-seeking.
Hence, perhaps, to achieve it, people shouldn’t constantly desire to satisfy their lack of it.
People must free themselves from the selfishness of finding love to complete themselves and welcome a rather loving and accepting mindset. This is the foundation of the all-too-familiar quote, or mantra people follow about love, that it only comes when they least expect it.
Love Finds Its Way to People Who Aren’t Seeking It
The Color of Love by Raymond Quattlebaum reminds everyone how love is ever-present. It’s always among people, an invisible thread connecting everyone, but to more than the others. The author emphasizes that love is the most powerful emotion, reflecting the divine beauty of the world.
However, regardless of how people preach its presence in the air and the beauty of its existence, it’s relatively easy for people to fall into a dark place once they feel lonely. With the thought that love is everywhere, those who haven’t found it may even be pushed further into despair. People may have been repeatedly reminded that love isn’t self-seeking. But over something that feels so magnificent, they can’t help but look for it in every person they meet. They can’t hold themselves back from chasing after every possibility of them experiencing it.
Them.
When people yearn and desire to experience love, they begin to nurture a selfish mindset. This goes against how love must be perceived according to the Bible and may deem their efforts futile. Love isn’t self-seeking, which means people shouldn’t desperately seek comfort and pleasure. Instead, love must be sacrificed. It’s thriving in being alone and completing oneself rather than asking for another to do so.
Love isn’t self-seeking means avoiding stressing about it or lacking it. After all, the more people emphasize looking for love, the bigger this hole looks and feels. When people don’t look at love in despair, they begin to enjoy and live in the moment. This opens them more to the possibility of it.
In Seeking Love, People Must Seek Comfort in Themselves First
People shouldn’t seek love. It should be the other way around. Love must seek people.
In a society run by egocentrism, it can be tempting to chase what one desires despite it not being the right time or person set by the universe. However, love shouldn’t insist. It shouldn’t be forced but rather progress organically. For love to be successful and achieved wonderfully, it must happen naturally. Hence, people shouldn’t seek it but must be sought by it.
They should be involved more in things that bring them happiness and completes them instead of looking for these in another person. Love isn’t self-seeking. It should be self-completing, encouraging people to complete themselves before connecting with another.
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