Down through the ages many have held that the best answer to this question is love. That raises some important questions. Is love a value? Does love belong with other things considered values such as honesty, loyalty, justice, fairness, mercy, bravery, etc.?
Were the ancient lore masters of wisdom correct when they held love to be the highest quality of all qualities? When it was written around 2000 years ago “Now abideth faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love” did that mean love was the most important value of all?
When Buddha, Jesus and other great sages teach ‘we are to love above all else’ does that mean love is a value to which we are to aspire? Are we to endeavor to be more lovable as well as loving? If we let things detract or distract us from being more loving and lovable are we sinning, being inadequate, failing to live to our full potential?
A value is a characteristic of merit to which we can live by. A person guiding their life by a characteristic of merit is one to emulate, respect and honor. Those whose lives exemplify living by meritorious values are examples and models of what often is regarded as the best in humanity. So, is living by the value of love a characteristic of highest value? Can this represent a person of high caliber and consequence?
Certain social analysts have held that the more a society values love the more it prospers. Conversely the less a culture values love the more it is in danger of decline. It has been reasoned that love is the best connector and motivator of people bringing forth the best joint efforts for survival and advancement. Thus, the society that loves best survives and advances best.
The same results are seen as true for mini-societies, tribes, clans, sects, neighborhoods, families and couples. It is reasoned that any collection of people who truly hold love as a high value will study love, learn how to do love better, practice love more often, and will more greatly improve with love. Love’s ability to motivate and facilitate connecting, nurturing, protecting, healing and sharing the many joys of love are hard to come by for those who lack love. Arguably the rise and fall of everything from couple’s relationships to whole civilizations may be explored by how they valued and dealt with healthy real love.
So, is love, being more loving, and being more lovable a high value for you in your own life? Is the great power of love and all love’s ways of helping us something that you are about? For you is love a high value?
As always – Go and Grow with Love
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