“Real love is when you become selfless and you are more concerned about your mate's or children's egos than your own. You're now a giver instead of a taker.” ~ Sylvester Stallone
This was added later to clarify...
Sylvester Stallone is hardly a hero to me, and ego is perhaps a poor choice of words. But the idea of being selfless and putting the other person's needs ahead of your own does show real love.
Real love is not about the preservation of anyone's EGO; your own or anyone else's. Real love is about doing what is best for the one you love, and that does not always mean doing what makes them feel good or feel warm and fuzzy about themselves. Every good parent knows that.
ReplyDeleteVery often, God, who is the our greatest exemplar of true love denies us what we want . . . what we think will make us feel good about ourselves . . . what we think we need to preserve and build up our ego. Instead he gives us what we really need, and often what we really need does not make us feel good about ourselves, but it helps us see what we need to do to actually improve ourselves . . . and THEN, after we understand the lesson and actually DO WHAT US RIGHT . . . THEN we get to feel good about ourselves because we deserve to feel good about ourselves.
AMEN to your added comment, added after I made my first comment.
ReplyDeleteMy initial comment to this post simply said, "AMEN", but then, before I submitted it I reread the quote and noticed Stallone's focus on the ego, not on the actual well-being of the love one. Hollywood personalities are most often focused on their egos, not on what is actually right and good. That was my point.
My comment was not an attack on your sentiments that people who really love each other put the needs (not just the wants) of their loved ones ahead of their own needs. That is my own definition of Charity.
Charity is the title given to the attitude that is correctly called "the pure love of Christ." Your Grandma and Grandpa Johnson had it and your Aunt Betty has it.