{"id":3079,"date":"2010-09-16T00:29:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-16T05:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/?p=3079"},"modified":"2010-09-16T00:31:42","modified_gmt":"2010-09-16T05:31:42","slug":"enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/2010\/09\/16\/enough\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Her: \u00a0\u201cI love you\u201d
\nMe: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cHow much?\u201d
\nHer: \u00a0\u201cEnough\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s the tail end of a conversation<\/span><\/a> that a had with someone<\/span><\/a> a long time ago. \u00a0I didn’t understand it at the time but she was 100% right\/truthful\/correct in her answer to me. \u00a0At the time I was a bit disappointed with her answer. \u00a0I wanted some big grandiose flood of romantic response but got a small spoonful of blah. \u00a0Now that I watch her answer again its\u00a0got me thinking about where we are taught about love and \u00a0get our expectations of it. (Disney love anyway) \u00a0Love and loving is like air and breathing. \u00a0It\u2019s all natural and like you use your breath to talk, you use your love to love. \u00a0And whether they liked it or not, somebody taught you how to love. \u00a0Usually you learn it from mom. (not to leave the dads out because I\u2019m one of them but I also know that the bond between mother and child is something we as fathers can only hope to even get close to. sad but its just the way it is) \u00a0When you get that motherly love, you feel and learn how to love on a very basic subconscious level. \u00a0Its more of a feeling than anything else. \u00a0Now I\u2019m probably not the best person to be talking about this because of the way my mom showed me how to love (see Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde) but I like to think that because of my adventures in relearning what love is and how to give it, I\u2019ve got my doctorate in it.<\/p>\n

Okay, first thing\u2019s first (what does that even mean? of course the first thing is first, it damn sure ain\u2019t second) lets explore where we consciously learn about love. \u00a0We all start off surrounded by it and have endless amounts of it to give. \u00a0As babies love is shown without question, reason, or limit. \u00a0We feel the love and in turn are inadvertently taught how to express love on a very basic level by the actions we observe. The light bulb flashes on and we get it love = good (or crack). \u00a0As we get a little older and less smothered by love, we learn different ways that it can be expressed. \u00a0Thanks to Disney\/Pixar, Dreamworks, and any other of the companies that churn out kid movies, we start to learn that love should be expressed in certain ways for it to be socially accepted. (the corruption begins) \u00a0For example, if a guy loves a girl then he buys her flowers, chocolate or jewelry. \u00a0Any child watching this movie has just learned that the expression of love can take the form of material items. \u00a0Instead of a rub, kiss on the forehead, or a simple \u201cI love you\u201d, it can be expressed with stuff. \u00a0Nothing wrong with that, everybody loves to get gifts. \u00a0But what happens is that its continually expressed that way in future movies. \u00a0Love can be bought. \u00a0Both the little girl and the little boy have just learned a lesson. \u00a0Now I don\u2019t blame those companies for popping out movies that reinforce stereotypes and gender roles because the same this is being spoon-fed to adults. \u00a0You ever seen a guy in the movies show a girl he loves her by giving her a present? \u00a0Or maybe he did something that the girl didn\u2019t like and he buys her some roses or something to say that he is sorry. \u00a0\u00a0We already have enough with TV shows and movies making women seem like cute faces and pretty things are their only interests. \u00a0I think its time to keep it real.<\/p>\n

We have a lot of misconceptions about love and its our high expectations of love that fall short that are the cause of a lot of pain when real love and fake love meet. \u00a0Those expectations instill a love entitlement mentality. \u00a0We have seen too many movies where the nerd or social outcast is in love with the head cheerleader or equivalent and we are rooting for him because we think that she should love him. \u00a0WHY? \u00a0What if she is happy with the jock, the drummer, or somebody on her cheer leading team? \u00a0Just because he is head over heels in love with her doesn\u2019t mean that those feelings ought to be returned. \u00a0Basically, just because you can love doesn\u2019t mean that somebody has to love you back. \u00a0Cruel I know but true. \u00a0People who believe that love is deserved have what I call \u201cHappily Ever After\u201d syndrome or HEA (catchy eh?). \u00a0HEA is where we want something to happen so bad that it defies reality because it sounds and looks good. \u00a0Most people who suffer from HEA want the guy to get the girl. \u00a0Why can\u2019t the girl get the girl or the guy get the guy or just be alone? \u00a0In our society of \u201cshoulds\u201d, it doesn\u2019t sound right but in the real world, sometimes it works out better that way.<\/p>\n

I want to see a movie or kids movie that actually depicts true love. \u00a0Not that oooey gooey stuff we see with the soft music. \u00a0Real love, the kind that doesn\u2019t care what\u2019s in your bank account, how you look, or what sex you are. \u00a0Love that isn\u2019t given just because its been given to. \u00a0Love that isn\u2019t returned even though the other person was \u201cperfect\u201d. \u00a0Authentic love that\u2019s given to yourself first before anyone else. \u00a0Selfish love that is okay no matter what and doesn\u2019t sob in a corner just because it wasn\u2019t loved back the way it wanted. \u00a0Real love! \u00a0\u00a0Real love is rare, but when you find it, its stronger, less comfortable, and most importantly enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Her: \u00a0\u201cI love you\u201d Me: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cHow much?\u201d Her: \u00a0\u201cEnough\u201d That\u2019s the tail end of a conversation that a had with someone a long time ago. \u00a0I didn’t understand it at the time but she was 100% right\/truthful\/correct in her answer to me. \u00a0At the time I was a bit disappointed with her answer. \u00a0I wanted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338,333,335,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-of-benji","category-ocbenji-special","category-random-thoughts","category-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3079\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocbenji.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}