Love by Lauren

Love by Lauren - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

Saying a simple phrase like, “I love you”, may not be a big deal for some people. Over the years the word “love” has been thrown around left and right without any hesitation or knowledge of what this word actually means. Each generation comes up with a different meaning of love, so how can we ever know the true definition of it? If I were able to give a speech on a topic in a school-wide setting, the topic would simply be about my interpretation on the word, love.
During the Roman and Greek times, many people thought that love may have been doing something dangerous or harmful in order to receive an award. For example, many Romans would go into battle and kill another to win the love of a woman. Or many of the Greek gods would offer sacrifice so people will worship before them. Now this does not seem right.
Moving forward in time, we end up seeing that love becomes lust and with lust becomes danger and with danger, there is corruption. I believe that the reason this world is divided is because of the pure fact that humanity has lost the real meaning of love. Society views love as a feeling which leads to things such as prostitution or lust. When we base love on that, we believe that it is okay to play with somebody’s feelings for the time being and when we get bored of the other, we can just pack up all our “feelings” and then leave. However, I believe that this is not what love should be about.
Love is a choice. It is a sacrificial action that requires a great deal of maturity to handle. Now, that is not going to say that most teenagers or young people can’t love, because that is not true. Anybody can love. It does not matter the age, rather, it matters the maturity level of the person and their mentality that love is most definitely a choice and not a feeling; because feelings change, but love is something that should be able to last a lifetime.