Begüm Bener

“Love is work, the essence of non-love is laziness. True love is an act of will.”

Hey dears,

This week’s topic is Love 🙂 ❤️

Love is the creative force of the Universe. It is the strongest energy we have because it carries an unwavering will.

Love is our natural state of being—the most effortless way to “be.” – Yet, as we all know from experience, love isn’t always effortless.

This week, I shared a simple yet profound quote from The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck @manifestwithbooks

“Love and discipline go hand in hand.”

When we understand love as something greater than emotional or physical connection, we can embrace Peck’s definition:

“Love is the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

If you are into this biz. a little bit :), and explored the path of spiritual growth, you would know how much discipline it demands.

Where everything requires dedicated effort in life, I don’t know who convinced us into the expectation that love should be effortless 🙂 

Finding and experiencing true love requires a journey—one shaped by self-discipline.

M. Scott Peck explains:

“The energy for the work of self-discipline derives from love, which is a form of will. Self-discipline is usually love translated into action.Any genuine lover behaves with self-discipline, and any genuinely loving relationship is a disciplined relationship. If I truly love another, I will order my behavior to contribute the utmost to their spiritual growth.”

Peck also notes that uncaring or unloving parents often lack self-discipline. When they fail to provide their children with a sense of love, they also fail to provide the capacity for self-discipline. Similarly, people who are passively dependent—those who constantly seek attention—often lack self-discipline because they are unwilling to delay gratification.

This suggests that if you observe a lack of self-discipline in certain areas of your life, you may also be lacking the self-discipline required for real love with another person—the kind of love that leads to spiritual growth. This love is different from romantic love.

You may wonder: What is real love?

According to Peck:

“In the case of genuine love, the aim is always spiritual growth. Non-love, on the other hand, always aims at something else. Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom. When we are truly concerned for someone’s spiritual growth, we recognize that a lack of commitment can be harmful. Commitment is necessary for us to manifest our concern effectively.”

Real love is work. But it’s more than dealing with the other person’s sh*ts  but working on ourselves. Through the work we do on ourselves, we increase our capacity to give and receive love. 

If real love is work, then we have to be very selective about whom we do the work for and with. 

“To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spiritual growth, is to waste your energy. Genuine love is precious, and those who are capable of genuine love know that their loving must be focused as productively as possible through self-discipline.” 

After exploring all these reflections on love—beyond simply feeling it or saying, “I love this” or “I love him”—it becomes clear that without action, intention, and discipline, love means diddly squat :))

“Desire is not necessarily translated into action. Will is the desire of sufficient intensity that is translated into action. The difference between the two is equal to the difference between saying, ‘I would like to go swimming tonight’ and ‘I will go swimming tonight.’ The desire to love is not itself love. Love is as love does. Love is an act of will, both an intention and an action.”

I truly enjoyed revisiting this book, which I first read nearly five years ago. This week, I found myself suddenly picking it up from the library—as if an unexplainable force guided me to it. I’m grateful I listened to my intuition.

I hope you’ve found something that would be helpful along your journey.

As always,

Much love ❤️

Begum