A student’s viewpoint on how to discover the true potential of love

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

During the past seven months in Edinburgh, I have had opportunities to meet with people from a diverse array of backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. Through these interactions, I have come to a seemingly small realisation of the common existence of certain mindset within the social circles The mindset that I am talking about is more like a block diagram and it is usually dictated by that little egotistic voice in our heads that says, of students in the university community and I will use this as the first building brick of my message today. “If I do not need anything from you, then you have nothing to offer or contribute in my life, therefore I don't really see the need to become friends with you.” Now before I move on, I would like to point out that, there are two kinds of people who are familiar with this idea and I will describe them below:

Person One: After interacting with a commendable number of individuals with preferably benefit-seeking mindset, you started feeling holistically inadequate, you started feeling as if you are socially irrelevant, you started feeling like you are not smart enough and all these feelings culminated in your suffering from the impostor syndrome – I am talking about that feeling that makes you end up saying, “Oh well, maybe I was not meant to be at this university.”

Person Two: After interacting with a lot of people who, in your own opinion, do not really have anything to offer in your life, you started feeling like you will never meet people that can connect with you, you start questioning some of your life choices whether it be your choice of program, choice of university or choice of social circles, you start feeling like you will never meet people that complement your humanness and again, almost like the formerly described person, you just end up having that feeling that makes you say, “Oh well, maybe I was not meant to be at this university.”

Just a point to note, many times I have found myself in both the feet of Person One and Person Two, and trust me, they are not pleasant feet to be in.

In my own opinion, I would say that in both cases, there are three elements that are lacking and if all of us were able to harness these elements, the smoothness with which the earth rotates about its own axis would even be smoother. The elements that I am about to talk about are all formed around just but one basis; the one thing that every human being craves for, the one thing that we all fight for and the one thing that we all need – love. Without further ado, I will talk about the three elements of love that we all need to achieve:

In my own opinion, I would say that in both cases, there are three elements that are lacking and if all of us were able to harness these elements, the smoothness with which the earth rotates about its own axis would even be smoother. The elements that I am about to talk about are all formed around just but one basis; the one thing that every human being craves for, the one thing that we all fight for and the one thing that we all need – love. Without further ado, I will talk about the three elements of love that we all need to achieve:

Love without judgement
From my personal standpoint, if you judge a person, you have no time (or even willingness) to love him or her. Sometimes, we judge people as'weird', sometimes we judge people as unscrupulous and sometimes we judge people As self-serving. On this element, I will just leave you with a question to think about. Do these judges allow us to love the next individual or all they do is push us adrift from any idea that it's our duty to exhibit love towards the next individual regardless of his / her imperfections?

Love without expectation
I will try to explain this element using one beautiful yet simple mathematical concept called proportionality. If we let love take the variable L and expectation take the variable E, then L is directly proportional to E which means that if E increases, L increases and conversely. What am I trying to say?

Loving with expectation causes you to impose certain expectations on the people around you. The more someone fulfils your expectations, the more you love them. If these people fail to fulfil these expectations, then the amount of love that you can give towards them will decrease And if they don't fulfil any expectations at all, then you know the drill.

Love without conditions
Loving with conditions is that type of love that makes you say, “I love this person as long as….” I have seen this kind of love manifesting itself in many of my engineering colleagues lives. There are some students who love you as long As you help them with those mind-boggling Engineering Mathematics problems or share with them what you did in that assignment that is due in two days. Now I am not saying this is a bad thing always. In more than one cases, this has served as the first building block of my friendships with some of my colleagues. After solving that Engineering Math problem or submitting that assignment, if someone says, “Hey, wanna go have a Frappuccino at Starbucks?” Then, we have a budding symbiotic friendship at hand. However, if after the mission at hand has been accomplished, the aid recipient casually says, “Thanks,”Then the next time he talks to you is when he needs your help again, then I would like to say that is love with conditions. Why do I say so? The day you fail to meet the condition of being able to solve math problems or allowing them to take a look at your assignment, the importance that you hold in their lives will fly away as fast as the peregrine eagle.

In conclusion, what am I saying? Judgment, expectations and conditions can hinder from realising the true potential of the love that exists within us. Loving without judgment, expectation or condition are all elements of the highest level of love that the Holy Bible encourages – In my opinion, the profound essence of agape love is found in goodwill, benevolence, and taking wilful delight in the object of love. This kind of love cannot be expressed by thoughts or feelings as it is only action-oriented. Do you learn to exhibit this type of love? Someone may ask. Well, firstly, stop feeling inadequate and embrace your imperfections. Secondly, rather looking at what someone can bring to the table of friendship, start looking at what you can bring to this table of friendship. Thirdly,If they don't, still, appreciate that people are different and they all deserve to be loved. Last but not least, if you need to relieve some stress , it's never a bad time to call a friend to go out, relax and try that Strawberry Crème Frappuccino at Starbucks.

Kind Regards,

Brian Tinashe Toperesu.

All rights reserved. This work is not my own and is created by a  Brian Tinashe Toperesu.