Is love essential in the pursuit of happiness to life?

Answer 1

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*"What in the world is the difference between loving a person and being selfishly attached to them?
Love is the sincere wish for others to be happy, and to be free from suffering.
Having realistically recognized others' kindness as well as their faults, love is always focused on the other person’s welfare. We have No ulterior motives to fulfill our self-interest, or to fulfill our desires; to love others simply because they exist.
Selfish attachments, on the other hand, exaggerates others' good qualities and makes us crave to be with them. When we're with them, we're happy, but when we're separated from them, we are often miserable. These selfish attachments are linked with expectations of what others should be or do.
Is love as it is usually understood in most societies really love? or selfish attachments ?
Let us examine this a bit more. Generally we are attracted to people either because they have qualities we value or because they help us in some way. If we observe our own thought processes mindfully, and carefully - we'll notice that we look for specific qualities in others.
Some of these qualities we find attractive, others are those our parents, or society value.
We examine someone's looks, education,
financial situation, social status. This is how most of us decide on whether or not the person holds any true value to us.
In addition, we judge people as worthwhile according to how they relate to us! If they help us, praise us, make us feel secure, listen to what we have to say, care for us when we are sick or depressed, we consider them good people, and it is this type of people we are most likely to be more attracted to.

But this is very biased, for we judge them only in terms of how they relate to "us", as if we are the most important person in the world.
After we've judged certain people to be good for us, whenever we see them it appears to us as if goodness is coming from them, but if we are more aware, we recognize that we have projected this goodness onto them.

Desiring to be with the people a lot who make us feel good, we become emotional yo-yo's - when we're with these people, we're up, when we're not with these people, we're down.

Furthermore, we form fixed concepts of what our relationships with those people will be and thus have expectations of them. When they do not live up to our expectations of them, we're very disappointed, or may become angry.
We want them to change so that they will they will match what we think they are. But our projections and expectations come from our own minds, not from the other people.
Our problems arise not because others aren't who we thought they we're, but because we mistakenly thought they were something they aren't.
Checklist: "I Love You if __________ "
What we call love is most often selfish attachments.
It is actually a disturbing attitude that overestimates the qualities of another person. We then cling to tightly to that person, thinking our happiness depends on that person.
" Unconditional Love, on the other hand, is an open and very calm, relaxed attitude. We want someone to be happy, and free from suffering simply because they exist. While selfish attachments are uncontrolling and too sentimental, Unconditional Love is direct and powerful. Selfish attachments obscures our judgment and we become impatient, angry, and impartial, helping only our dear ones and harming those who we don't like. Unconditional Love builds up others, and clarifies our minds, and we
access a situation by thinking of the greatest good for everyone. Attachments are based on selfishness, while Love is founded upon cherishing others, even those who do not look very appealing to the eyes. Unconditional Love looks beyond all the superficial appearances, and dwells on the fact that they are just like us: they want inner peace, happiness, and want to avoid suffering. If we see unattractive, dirty, ignorant people, we feel repulsed because our selfish minds want to know attractive, intellectual, clean, and talented people. Unconditional Love, on the other hand, never evaluates others by these superficial standards and looks much deeper into the person. Unconditional Love recognizes that regardless of the others' appearances, their experience is the same as ours: they seek inner peace, to be happy, to be free from sufferings, and to do their best to avoid problems.
When we're selfishly attached, we're not mentally and emotionally free. We overly depend on and cling to another person to fulfill our mental and especially our emotional needs. We fear losing the person, feeling we'd be incomplete without him.

However, this does not mean that we should suppress our emotional needs or become aloof, alone and totally independent, for that too does not solve the problem. We must simply realize our unrealistic needs, and slowly seek to eliminate them. Some emotional needs may be so strong that they can't be dissolved immediately.
If we try to suppress them or pretend they do not exist, we become anxious, insecure, falling into a depression. In this case, we can do our best to fulfill our needs while simultaneously working gradually to subdue them.
"The core problem is that most of us seek to be loved, rather than to love. We yearn to be understood by others rather than to understand them. In all honesty, our sense of emotional insecurities comes from the selfishness obscuring our own minds. 'We can develop self-confidence by recognizing our inner potential to become a selfless human being with many, magnificent qualities, then we'll develop a true and accurate feeling of self-confidence. And
then we'll seek to increase true unconditional love, without selfish attachments, to increase compassion, to cultivate loving-kindness, patience and understanding, as well as generosity, concentration and wisdom.'

"Under the influence of selfish attachments we're bound by our emotional reactions to others. When they are nice to us, we're happy. When they ignore us, or speak sharply to us, we take it personally and are unhappy. But pacifying these selfish attachment doesn't mean we become hard-hearted. Rather, without selfish attachment there will be space in our hearts and minds for genuine Affection and Impartial Love for them."
We'll be actively involved with them.
As we learn to subdue our selfish attachments, we can have successful friendships and personal relationships with others. These relationships will be richer because of the freedom and respect which the relationships will be based on. We'll care about the happiness and the misery of all human beings equally, simply because everyone is the same in wanting and needing inner peace, happiness. However, our lifestyles and interests may be more compatible with those of some people more so than with others and that is alright. In any case, our relationships will be based on mutual Love, mutual interests, and the wish to help each other in life."*



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Answer 2

Yes, but there are several kinds of love, each of which can lead to a fuller human experience but not necessarily greater happiness (unfortunately the English language only has one word for love).
Affection - fondness through familiarity
Friendship - bond b/w 2 or more with a shared interest
Eros - romantic love (what most people think when they hear the word "love")
Charity - a love that need not be requited, nor is it bestowed on someone due to "lovable qualities" of that person. In other words, unconditional love. This is the rarest and most difficult forms of love.

Each of the above provides its own accompanying sense of happiness, and it would be hard to imagine one having happiness without possessing any of the 4 kinds of love.

Answer 3

There are many types of love to speak of. I believe the quality of life is directly effected by the love shared in it. So, in my life where my idea of happiness is more toward family goals, love plays a big part of my happiness. However, if money and power were my main goals in life, love may not even be a factor. The pursuit of happiness is an individual thing.

Answer 4

Not always in the pursuit of happiness but in the pursuit of life itself.
In everything we do, in all the undertaking of our aspirations, hopes, and struggles, they are always maneuvered or made possible because of love, even in the end it is not directly leading us to happiness but for the happiness of our loved ones.
A mother's hard work and sufferings are superseded by the love for her children.

Answer 5

Yes but it can not be your only pursuit as many people mistake lust for love or the love of money drives them. It has to be the right kind of love, a feeling you never get with anyone else at any time.

Answer 6

NO i think that you can live a great and successful life without ever finding love! It is a plus though if you do find the 1 u love and want to be with for the rest of your life

Answer 7

I dont think so.I think you have to learn to love yourself before you can be happy with anything else.But.......sometimes that special person might come along and sweep you off your feet during your pursuit.

Answer 8

Loving yourself is essential. Once you learn to love yourself for who you are, loving others and happiness follows.

Answer 9

Yes, but it can be for the love of a romantic kind, love of animals, love of a child, love of life, love of nature and love for your fellow man.

Answer 10

Yeah, if your not passionate about anything than life is pretty dull. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to love a wife/husband, but just be passionate about something or someone.

Answer 11

Loving yourself is essential.