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The Beloved’s Fulfillment, the Goal of Love
Yearnings for Fulfillment
1. To love someone is always to want them to improve.
The true good of the one we love: their fullness
Popular wisdom
Along with the unconditional desire for the person to live —which we analyzed in the preceding articles—, love seeks for the beloved person to be good: to live well, in the sense in which the classical Greeks used this expression, which has little or nothing to do with the current idea of living the good life.
Indeed, the greatest thing we can wish for the one we love is that he or she reaches the fullness to which he or she has been called.
And this, in direct and simple expression, is stated in a few words: that you be good.
That is why, more than once, I have heard people of recognized prestige, with many years of study in anthropology and ethics, comment on ideas such as the following: “the most profound advice I have received in my life consists of what my grandmother, full of affection, repeated to me when I was only three or four years old: ‘my son, be good!'”
The established philosophers
Aristotle would agree with the feelings of those old women. For him, true love must be accompanied by the genuine desire that those we love reach or approach their full potential.
Hence, he rejected, as false and dangerous, the friendship between
- Men of ill character, who associate for base things, and become wicked by making themselves like one another.
To add:
- On the other hand, friendship between good people is good, and it makes them better as their interaction increases, because they take each other as a model and correct each other.
And he concluded:
- Perfect friendship is that of good men who are equal in virtue, because they want for each other what is truly good .
True love and friendship
want those they love to be good,
to reach their full potential.
Not the good itself
Here, the comments could multiply, largely due to contrast.
For example, in light of what Aristotle says, many mothers and fathers should be reminded that true education encourages seeking the genuine good of each child.
- No, as often happens, a mere apparent benefit: that they don’t feel bad, or that they feel good (instead of trying to make them good).
- Nor, much less, under the pretext of love for them, the supposed good or well-being of oneself (of the father or mother, in our case): tranquility, freedom of movement, projected self-realization, absence of worries, permissiveness…
And to everyone, regardless of their age and condition, it should be repeated that, in the proper sense, one cannot speak of a true friend when the relationship with that person does not result, for both, in a real improvement that brings them closer to their respective fulfillment.
As Alberoni explains :
- For love to exist, the lover must awaken latent or contained possibilities within our being:
- that helps us to develop and train ourselves better, bringing us closer to our full potential.
It is not possible to speak of friendship when the relationship between friends
does not result, for both, in a real improvement,
an advance towards their own fulfillment.
2. Accepting it as it truly is, even though we desire its fullness
Don’t rush things: souls, like fine wine, improve with time.
Without denying anything just mentioned, I think a clarification is even more essential, with enormous practical repercussions, especially in times of difficulty for the one we love.
It could be summarized by saying that we do not love properly if the desire for the loved one to improve arrives, and tries to impose itself, too soon.
That is, viewed from the opposite extreme: if from the first moment we do not accept it and want it! just as it actually is, with each and every one of its defects, however destructive they may seem and actually are.
Otherwise, if we try to improve her prematurely, that person will feel rejected, unloved, and we will not be able to help her.
If we try to improve her prematurely,
that person will feel rejected
and we won’t be able to help her.
In order to be able to love “her”
This is a particularly relevant truth for those who are dedicated to promoting people in irregular or difficult situations: abandoned children, single and lonely mothers, drug addicts, criminals…
People who, at times, have made theft, deception, and fraud a kind of second nature, perhaps because they have not seen or experienced any other way of living.
If, in our sincere desire to help them, we do not accept and love these people as they truly are, with all their painful and lacerating flaws; if we seek above all else for them to change, we will not be loving them, but, so to speak, their improved alias according to our expectations.
And we will hardly achieve the goal of helping them and bringing them closer to their full potential.
- Feeling rejected, they will withdraw into themselves, making any attempt to reach them and help them improve and move forward futile.
Unconditional acceptance of the loved one
is the foundation on which all our love is based.
3. For man, to be is to live and to perfect himself: to approach his fullness
To confirm “dynamically” their being
Extension of the original “yes”
But let’s return to the central theme of this series of articles. We will see then that the desire to help the loved one improve, and bring them closer to their full potential, is always linked to love, since it represents nothing more than the natural extension of what was sought when saying yes , when confirming their existence.
For what reasons?
Something similar happens with man to what occurs in the regenerative core of a seed: he is not something inert and static. Rather, he constitutes a kind of concentrated energy, which tends to expand and bring each and every component of the person to its full potential.
With very concrete manifestations
Contemporary biology relating to human beings clearly points this out.
- From the very moment of conception, the newly conceived creature takes control of itself and, to a certain extent, of the mother.
- And, immediately, it sets in motion all its developmental capacity, multiplying its cells, differentiating them and organizing them in a way that not even the most advanced computer could achieve in millions of years.
- Then, as soon as it leaves the mother’s womb, everything is also about growing, developing and differentiating: both from a biological point of view, and in terms of its ability to move, to feel, to understand, to love.
- And the rest of his life, although perhaps less conspicuous, consists or should consist of continuing with that unfolding, until approaching its fullness, reaching levels that, at times, are difficult to predict.
- Think of the giants of humanity throughout history: a John Paul II, a Teresa of Calcutta, or any of the great artists or scientists—Phidias, Michelangelo, Einstein—who have amazed the world with their discoveries.
This is natural for human beings: to grow and develop, in the broadest and noblest sense of these words.
For human beings,
it is natural to grow and develop,
until reaching their own full potential.
To foster its development, to bring it closer to its full potential!
Willingness to promote
Therefore, it is not truly possible to love someone, to affirm them in their being, without at the same time desiring that the beloved person progress more and more. Without aspiring that they unfold all the perfection already contained within them, in a certain way, from the very moment of their conception.
In this sense, Maurice Nédoncelle defines love as a will to promote.
And he explains, summarizing much of what has been said so far:
- The self that loves desires, above all else, the existence of the other;
- He wants, to put it another way, the development of the you,
- and wants that autonomous development to be (as far as possible) harmonious with regard to the value glimpsed by the self for him.
With realistic effects
This confirms an idea that has been pointed out several times: the desire for development and improvement that I have been referring to as an integral element of love is not a whim, an empty and inconsistent desire that does not achieve any results.
On the contrary, truly loving someone always entails supporting their growth, their development, and their progress toward fulfillment. This support is proportional to the quality, intensity, and intelligence of the love given, provided that the loved one does not openly resist it.
In the next article we will see, in some detail, how and why.
I anticipate, for now, that:
- Love allows one to see the paths the beloved must take to reach their fulfillment.
- and gives him the strength to move forward through them, without faltering.
It is not possible to truly love someone
without trying to help them progress and develop,
until they approach their full potential.
(To be continued)
Tomás Melendo,
President of Edufamilia
http://www.edufamilia.com
[email protected]
EduFamilia
Edufamilia es una asociación sin ánimo de lucro, nacida en el año 2005. Su fundador, Tomás Melendo, advirtió que una mejora en la calidad de las familias facilitaría la resolución de bastantes de los problemas que aquejan a la sociedad de hoy. Y, apoyado siempre por su mujer, decidió lanzarse a esta aventura que cuenta con casi veinte años de vida y con múltiples ediciones de los distintos cursos formativos: Másteres y Maestrías, Expertos, cursos más breves, conferencias, ciclos culturales, seminarios y otros programas educativos. Aunque las primeras ediciones tuvieron carácter presencial, actualmente se ha hecho un gran esfuerzo por promover la infraestructura virtual para adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos y que la formación en torno a la familia alcance al mundo entero.
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