What is the difference between love and romance?
This is a question I get asked—a lot.
Many people have their own definitions of love and romance, but many think they are intertwined.
When you think about loving someone, how do you define the concept?
Is new romance thrilling, like an adventure? Is it a diversion from your everyday life?
Or, do you think of love as an investment in dedication, perseverance, and fidelity?
When you live a life of significance, you submit to being needed and needing your loved ones.
As a life coach, motivational speaker, and keynote speaker who specializes in executive coaching, I know needing someone—and being needed by others—isn’t easy.
To clarify, you shouldn’t mistake the feeling of being needed for codependence. What I’m talking about is interdependence. And it’s the most enriching, empowering link you can have to another person.
Let’s work on understanding the difference between love and romance.
What is the difference between love and romance?
Romance is when someone loves another person because of their beauty.
But, if someone is beautiful because another person loves them, that’s real love. It is a value-creating love that inspires us to become everything we were born to be.
The only way to feel real love is to know that we are truly needed.
Mere romance is an emotional attachment built around ego and selfishness. It is a virtual obsession to take more than you give.
Everyone seeks romance because it is enjoyable, and it feels good. But when love does not accompany romance, it can quickly become destructive.
Romance is often little more than a politically correct label for lust. That is to say, it is an ugly, conditional relationship rooted in excessive self-importance and boastful arrogance.
Significant individuals learn to rise above romantic selfishness to achieve love—with all its intensity, power, turbulence, frustration, yearning, attraction, restraint, forbidding, peace, beauty, and sublimity.
True love is unselfish and involves giving more than you get.
True love represents unconditional cherishing and concern for another. It fulfills the other’s needs and brings about the sublime pleasure of being needed.
Our chances of living the Twelve Laws of Significance rise to 100 percent probability when we have someone by our side who truly loves us, who is easing the burden, and whom we love in turn.
Being needed is the highest form of love.
In a philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection.
In a religious context, love is a virtue and the basis for all beings—God is love. The word “love” can refer to various feelings, states, and attitudes.
For instance:
- Generic pleasure—I loved that meal
- Intense devotion—I love my wife
- Emotional closeness—I love my children
- Platonic love—I love my dog
All these versions of love are valid. I love a well-cooked meal, I’m utterly devoted to my wife, I would give my life for my children, and I’ve been the recipient of unconditional love from my Maltese, Porsha—who is happy to see me regardless of how late I come home, how much weight I’ve gained, or my job status.
However, it is when you commit to yielding your notion of romantic love to needing others and being needed, that you reach the pinnacle of significance.
Above all, needing someone and being needed by someone can be uncomfortable, but it’s in that discomfort that you find true fulfillment.
Four Action Steps to Experience Love
1. Make a love list.
List the ten people you love most, explaining in a sentence or two why you love them.
Evaluate the difference in the kind of love and level of intensity with which you love each of them—is your love based on romance or true love?
Do you love them because of what they give you, or do you love them generously and selflessly, pouring yourself out for them?
2. Make an action list.
List one need of each person you listed in action step one. Plan a concrete action you can take to help meet each of those needs.
3. Make a gratitude list.
List the five actions others do for you that make you feel most loved. Thank those who do those actions for you and let them know they are needed.
4. Make a priority list.
List the five places (destinations) and five things (car, boat, vacation home, sport, hobby, etc.) that you love most.
Compare the amount of time, money, and energy you spend on these things to the time, money, and energy you spend on the people you listed earlier. If you are putting more into your own selfish pursuits than into your relationships, consider how to change your priorities.
Loving is giving and taking with a brave heart.
If you can harness the power of genuine love, there are no limits to what you can achieve.
Take time to examine the relationships in your life and decide if they’re based on romance or deep and abiding love.
It won’t just apply to your personal relationships. For example, examine your dedication to work. Are you committed to your employer because it’s romantic, exciting, fleeting? Or, are you invested in the business?
Would you like to explore love in all its forms and harness its power? Contact me, and we’ll explore the potential together.
This content is from Dan’s Best Selling Book: The Art of Significance—Achieving The Level Beyond
Success, which brings people on a transformative journey to achieve a level of success that helps them chart a course beyond money and fame.
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