Love
Daily Meditation #355–2/14/2023
This will certainly seem corny since it’s Valentines, but seeing as Relationship Wellness is one of our Eudaimonic Four Tenets, let’s dig in:
It’ll sound obvious, but our loved ones are some of our most vital investments in our lives.
Just as Chapman discusses in his seminal work “The Five Love Languages,” we all have a sort of “love fuel” tank that gets filled and emptied, and certain behaviors fill us more or less — as well as the tanks of our spouse.
Love — romantic love — is something we absolutely must not just have time for, but make time for.
Every week, at least once, wholly dedicated time needs to be spent.
Video games.
A movie.
Dinner.
A walk somewhere special.
My fiancée and I (when we have filled the 4,500 mile gap!)? We enjoy board games!
And it can’t be something you normally do together. If you watch Netflix and veg with wine every night, watching a movie on Netflix together is, well, nothing “special.”
Maybe you take a dancing class and then go out dancing once a week.
Perhaps you get season tickets to a local theatre.
Or even draw a theme from a hat and write (and read) a 10 minute short story you write for one another.
Love and relationships certainly are work.
But keeping the love and the romance cannot become “work.”
You and your spouse are important to one another. You would make time for your boss just as you’d expect them to make time for you — so is it really so “silly” to try to have the same experience with your soulmate?
Follow for daily philosophical meditations.
These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
