Most of us might find falling in love very easy. But remaining in love is quite a difficult business. Becoming attracted toward a pretty face, a heart-arresting expression, an imprinting smile, they all happen quite involuntarily, and once under the spell, it becomes almost impossible for us to think about anything else. This infatuation on one side can hardly be termed ‘love’, it is infatuation. Love, from this stage, is far more out, and requires a lot of voluntary effort not only in turning that infatuation into a well-formed, well-intended, and serious relationship, but also sustaining it in the wake of impossibly testing situations that come afterwards.
Mostly, the passion of the infatuated person, along with some sense of humor, innocent awkwardness, boldness, some poetry, and definitely some determination, is enough to bring the desired partner into a relationship, and through loving them make them fall in love as well. But that’s where the journey begins: after the bond has been sealed. It is not enough to love. Love is not an emotion, although that is what we belief love to solely be. Love is a skill. So, it is important that we know ‘how to love’, rather than just love or be in love with someone. The love, being a skill, is far more laborious and rather unromantic than being in love. It requires care, kindness, selflessness, and putting them first. It asks of us not only the openness of friendship, the loyalty of siblings, the vulnerability of a child, the patience of a teacher, the eagerness of a student, the obedience of a pious man, but also the parental care.
To have an acute awareness that things will not turn out to be the way you, or you two, imagined it to be, but to also realize that it doesn’t have to disrupt everything that you’ve worked together for, and ruin everything that could still be. Just as there aren’t any peaceful marriages, as Marianne Moore bluntly said, peaceful relationships are just as rare to be found. Where even a healthy relationship (between secure partners with relatively sound childhoods and a situation free of any major challenges for their future together) might suffer, a relationship between weak partners would suffer even greatly.
Now, weak could mean many things, but what I want to mean by it here is ‘the sensitive ones.’ Either they should all together avoid relationships, which of course would involve deep attachments and considering what most of relationships go through and how they turn out to be, would involve traumatic amount of emotional and psychological pain - or they get really lucky in finding someone who knows better than they do. No matter how much they educate themselves, these sensitive souls are always captive of their emotions, and their wellbeing is but at the mercy of their partner; therefore, it is really important that their partner should be more caring, understanding, and parentally inclined towards their wellbeing. Of course, in return they would be much loved, appreciated, and rewarded.
Does HSP really exist? I don’t know how others feel and with what severity, but for me, feelings have an overwhelming amount of dominance and almost always get the better of me. I am almost unhelpably weak before my emotions, and I always feel commanded to do as their impulses dictate. And while, I picked up this book to help myself in my relationships, I realized that my life outside this book is in a pretty shape.
This is the quintessential of how torturously unreadable this kind of painful self-help book can be. With prose of that of a high-schooler, and findings so stupidly common, and with a structure so inundated with headings (in compensation for not having anything meaningful to say) – this book brought me back the nightmares of reading such poorly written books.
With a 4.6 rating on Google, I was curious as to who would find
such a book not only readable that they would read past the first chapter, but
also find it so helpful that it should get scuh a high combined rating. I think
they are the ones who read one book a year and that too for something that
wouldn’t necessarily help them, but only make them feel good about themselves.
I believe such delicate and mattering subjects should be handled more literary than
so plainly.
Ratings: 1/5 * September 29, 2022_