Both: I was always led to believe that love is an emotion which is a feeling. However, if we excluded the both choices. I'd more likely say Love is a commitment.
Easiest example: kind of like family. You love your family (you may not always FEEL like you love them, but you know you do)---you have to constantly work on the relationship, and not base it on emotions (that's how a lot of abusive relationships are. Girl is basing her relationship on staying with him because of her emotions) You hold on, even if you don't feel like it. Not saying you should put up with everything. But if you truly love them, you will go through anything with them (if they truly love you, they will do the same for you)
This is a great question! Love is the most complex and powerful feeling/emotion we can possess. Naturally, we make choices based on our feelings. We choose to be with someone when they make us feel happy and are attracted to them. Eventually that happiness and attraction turns to love and then that turns to being IN love. I think that love is an emotion that grows from other good emotions, and that includes the kind of love we feel for family. Family love is unconditional and undying. And we don't choose that because anger, disappointment, jealousy, and other negative feelings will come and go, but in the end, there's always love.
You can't exactly choose to love someone. Even if you don't, and wish you could, you just can't. And if you love someone, you can't help it. As an example, if you've ever got in a fight with your parent, you think you hate them, or you want to, but you don't right? and I think that love is a feeling/emotion, not a result of one ;]
I think any good person retains the ability to love. To love is not a feeling or an emotion, although they do supplement it, true love is an action. When you love someone with all your heart and soul, you want them to be as happy and content as you are feeling. But in the same regards it is a chosen decision (to some degree). Have you ever left someone you loved because because your needs weren't being met, they cheated, they didn't reciprocate etc.? Making leaving them necessary for your own personal development and self satisfaction regardless of how the distance causes you pain. In that sense, love is a decision, its a decision to fall out of love. A person who defines love as only a feeling is greatly undermining its power and mistaking love for infatuation. isn't it in the beginning (forgive my spelling) of a relationship that we "feel" the intensity the most? The butterflies in the stomach, though enjoyable completely, is nature and hormones taking its biological course encouraging reproduction. However, later in the relationship the feeling is more of an appreciation, of caring, a comfort, a trust, two spirits in unity and the words "i love you" are supplemented by actions that prove it, that's the experience of love. It is unconditional. Love takes time.
Love is something that just happens . I think it grows with time, whether you choose for it to or not . It's a feeling and an emotion that is kind of unexplainable . You can't just choose to fall in love or choose to fall out of love . That's just my opinion though .
You don't choose to love,it happens . It's something that takes over your mind and your way of thought, that's why we do so much for certain people because we care about them or love them .
I think true love comes up and bites you when you're not expecting it . It maybe a rush of intensity, or may just grow over time, but when you realize you are in love, it's an overwhelming feeling . It's hard to "try" and fall in love with someone . And it's hard to forget a love too . You might be mixing up lust and infatuation which are just as intense as love, but for different reasons . Love is neither feeling or emotion . Or maybe it's both . Emotional attachment may be love . You may be feeling "in love" with someone because of what someone did or said to you . Not sure if there is one answer . But when you know, you know .
So many philosophical questions here, Descartes once said I think therefore I am, where does life start and end. The path of love is the same path of lunacy.
I don't think love is an emotion . I believe it's a compilation of experiences and other emotions in regards to a person or thing . Romantic love is something you share with another person . It encompasses all of the life experiences you have with the and the desire to continue having those positive experiences with them . Generally I think love is just that great feeling you get in certain situations that isn't definable . So we made up a word for it . The experiences and hopes/dreams are all real things, so don't get me wrong in saying there is no such thing as love . My point is I don't think it's so much an emotion by itself .
All of the above . I think that true love will have both a decision behind it, as well as a feeling . Nobody can deny that love carries with it an emotional feeling . Yet it must also have a decision that loves when it seems impossible . I believe that true love doesn't die just because it is hard - it just grows and strengthens when it is tough . True love loves when it isn't popular, it trusts blindly that things are going to be okay, it gives itself completely without holding back because of fear, and it forgives wrongs not because it must but because it can't think why not .
In truth, it's FAR more than just a feeling or a decision . In this case, one (feelings/emotions) plus one (decisions) doesn't equal two, but rather many thousands . It carries on growing and growing until you can't rationally measure it .
Wow . Well said . I'm experiencing the pain of a major pullback with a potential "more than friends" situation . I have this weird feeling that I should not give up and just be strong since he is still making an effort to contact me . A calm panic ? Very weird feeling indeed . It's like I just KNOW he will be back again and we'll be even closer, as long as I don't push . - 3 months ago
PS: Here's hoping you'll get best answer . It was well thought out . - 3 months ago
Answerer
Thanks! Yeah, love in my experience takes work over and above the simple enjoyment of it. All the feelings are an emotional roller-coaster that thrills and can be quite confusing at the end when you're totally dizzy. It is there though so that you can enjoy it. Be patient and it can only grow if it is true love. I really hope that things work out well for you and your friend. Be yourself and you'll do great. - 3 months ago
Question Asker
Thank you for your honest answer, I agree with you love is a growing process important is trusts blindly, forgive always . I don't think you can measure it on a scale of the human being . It sometimes takes a lifetime to find out you lose someone you love and it is too late to bring them back . - 3 months ago
Answerer
And it's the best thing in the world when you do find it and realize it. Sometimes it can be hard to recognize, but if you lose it, it is the single most painful thing that anyone can ever go through. It is such a bitter-sweet thing - either the best thing you have, or the best thing you have even when it's painful. I think though that even when some people don't realize they have love, it's because they are just denying that that's what it is. Its the most valuable thing that you can ever have - 3 months ago
Question Asker
Lady-in-Waiting I like that user name anything worth having is worth waiting for. Don't settle for second best when the best is out there, but be careful you don't set your standards to high, remember to meet a prince you have to kiss some toads and the right one will turn into a prince. - 3 months ago
Answerer
Too true, too true. Yeah, Lady-in-Waiting is actually pretty awesome. I asked a question a while back and she gave an awesome answer that really helped me out. You deserve nothing shy of true love, Lady-in-Waiting, so go get it and don't stop until you've got it! - 3 months ago
"Love" is a complicated set of emotions that ones mind associates with a specific person or thing. Each association is unique, which is why love can feel so different between people (i.e. the love you have for your parents versus the love you have for your girlfriend./boyfriend). All of these emotions have specific, identifiable brain processes associated with them.
That being the case, it is possible for both answers to be true. "Love" can spontaneously form for something due to subconscious activity of the brain, or it can also be something someone wills over time. It depends on the situation really, however in the latter case it would be something not many people would be able to do without a good deal of training if at all.