Love: feeling or choice?

I was at a Tupperware party the other evening…
Yes they are still a thing.

And we were playing one of those ice breaker games that you have to play at one of those things…This one happened to be a series of questions/tasks that involved the passing of a Tupperware prize around the room. Whoever had it in the end, gets to keep the prize.

The questions were things like, Pass the prize to the newest mother; …to whomever is wearing an article of clothing with the most buttons; Pass two spots to the left, ect. But the most significant question and the reason for this blog seemed to be: Pass the prize to the person who has been married the longest.

The prize went to the hostesses mother…a lively bubbly women in her late 60’s-early 70’s, who was getting ready to celebrate 50th years of marriage.
Yes five-zero (en), cincuenta (sp), penhnta (gr), viisikymmentä (fi).

The next question (which was NOT part of the game) escaped from several mouths…
what is your secret?

Everyone in the room started throwing out questioning-answers like: love, communication, respect…

Her answer was simple: choice and faith.

BRILLIANT but not easy.
Neither of those things is always easy.

Let’s start with the easier of the two: choice.

CHOICE

You con’t always have the feeling of love, but you always have the choice to love the person sleeping next to you…or arguing with you from the next room.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that .

When you don’t have the feeling, you still have the choice to act like you have the feeling, AND the faith that you are just in a season where the feeling has wained, but it will come back.

And I think about how much different our world would be if we applied the choice logic to-not only marriage- but to other things.
Fake it till you make it is an age old adage for a reason.

FAITH

Do I alway feel like God is right by my side-walking/guiding/holding me?

That would be a big fat NO.

But I choose (here’s that word again) to believe He is there, because I my brain tells me He is, even when the feeling isn’t there. But in my humanness, I just can’t feel it. And if we always made the choice to believe-our spouse loved us and we them or that God is here with us, ect.
Then, no one would ever stray.
No one would cheat.
No one would turn their back on God.
And no one would ever leave a pair of jeans hanging in the closet because they purchased them on a ‘good ass day’ and then three days later decided they had too big an ass for those jeans so they don’t wear them. Not that I’ve ever done that.

And that is the difference: love is a feeling, and feelings are fleeting. But sticking with a choice, that takes strength. The strength to know what is right and what is just that bad <insert your name here> voice in your head. Using you brain/logic/intellect is what tell you that it’s not possible for your ass to get too fat in three days time.

I’m not saying that emotions are bad. They are not. They are wonderful. But making decisions solely on them can get us into trouble. Balancing emotions with logic and thought is the better way to go.

Steve Jobs was a great visionary and he knew his computer was going to fill a need. He also knew that in order to get people to take a chance on the Apple computer he would have to get them to have an emotional response to it and if he could, he would ‘Get Them’.
He was right. She says as she taps away on her Macbook Pro.

Emotion and logic at work.

We often make the choice on marry based on an emotional response: love. I hope we all felt that when we walked down the aisle. But the feeling of love can come and go-if you tell me you love you parents/children/husband ALL the time-please give me the name of your dealer cause I wanna be on whatever it is you’re on.

But choosing to just believe that this moment is fleeting or making the choice to work through whatever (internally or externally) has gotten in the way of that “loving feeling” takes a lot of strength and faith.

Something —I choose to believe— we all have more of then we think.

It also means that if you choose to put on those jeans from the back of your closet,  your ass will look great-because you have a great ass. So…go put them on and shake your booty!

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