Attention is the Most Important Part of Love
If you’ve ever read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, you know it’s one of the greatest books out there, for defining the ways people give and receive affection or love. Chapman explains that out of the five main ways of expressing affection toward those we care about, we all have a primary and secondary means. They are: acts of service, gift giving, quality time, touch, and words of affirmation. With all of these, attention is required.
Sometimes, in a relationship, if one person is a gift giver and the other needs to hear love words verbally, there can be a disconnect. They both may end up feeling as if the other doesn’t care about them in the same way.
Understanding the differences in the way we feel and appreciate love is important. What must come first, however, is the intention and act of being there for the person you love.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Zen Monk and enlightened teacher, says it this way:
“When the other person realizes that his or her presence has been recognized and confirmed, he or she will blossom like a flower. To be loved is to be recognized as existing. Have you looked at others in this way? If you embrace them with the energy of mindfulness, with your true presence, this energy is completely nourishing. It is like water for a flower. A flower needs water to live, and the person you love needs your presence! Your presence is the most precious gift you can give him or her.”
Addiction to distraction
Our society today is a cacophony of sound, memes, videos, ads and information. Everyone is addicted. Your phone is most likely attached to you from the moment you open your eyes, to the moment you close them. It accompanies you to the bathroom, to meetings, to dates, to meals, to bed. You are always “plugged in”.
There are wonderful advantages of being connected to a hub of information and unlimited convenience resources via our phones. It’s a sense of safety, of never being alone, of having friends with us everywhere, and of endless apps ensuring efficiency in all of our daily tasks. We, as humans, are ever evolving, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to evolve into a more connected, plugged in species.
