英語優(yōu)美散文：真愛的含義

　　Love means that I know the person I love. I’m aware of the many sides of the other person----not just the beautiful side but also the limitations, inconsistencies and flaws. I have an awareness of the other’s feelings and thoughts, and I experience something of the core of that person. I can penetrate social masks and roles and see the other person on a deeper level.

　　Love means that I care about the welfare of the person I love. To the extent that it is genuine, my caring is not a smothering of the person or a possessive clinging. On the contrary, my caring liberates both of us. If I care about you, I’m concerned about your growth, and I hope you will become all that you can become. Consequently, I don’t put up roadblocks to what you do that enhances you as a person, even though it may result in my discomfort at times.

　　Love means having respect for the dignity of the person I love. If I love you, I can see you as a separate person, with your own values and thoughts and feelings, and I do not insist that you surrender you identity and conform to an image of what I expect you to be for me. I can allow and encourage you to stand alone and to be who you are, and I avoid treating you as an object or using you primarily to gratify my own needs.

　　Love means having a responsibility toward the person I love. If I love you, I’m responsive to most of your major needs as a person. This responsibility does not entail my doing for you what you are capable of doing for yourself; nor does it mean that I run your life for you. It does imply acknowledging that what I am and what I do affects you, so that I am directly involved in your happiness and your misery. A lover does have the capacity to hurt or neglect the loved one, and in this sense I see that love entails and acceptance of some responsibility for the impact my way of being has on you.

　　Love means growth for both myself and the person I love. If I love you, I am growing as a result of my love. You are a stimulant for me to become more fully what I might become, and my loving enhances your being as well. We each grow as a result of caring and being cared for; we each share in an enriching experience that does not detract form our being.

　　Love means making a commitment to the person I love. This commitment does not entail surrendering our total selves to each other; nor does it imply that the relationship is necessarily permanent. It does entail a willingness to stay with each other in times of pain, uncertainty, struggle, and despair, as well as in times of calm and enjoyment.

　　Love means trusting the person I love. If I love you, I trust that you will accept my caring and my love and that you won’t deliberately hurt me. I trust that you will find me lovable and that you won’t abandon me; I trust the reciprocal nature of our love. If we trust each other, we are willing to be open to each other and can shed masks and pretenses and reveal our true selves.

　　Love can tolerate imperfection. In a love relationship there are times of boredom, times when I may feel like giving up, times of real strain, and times I experience an impasse. Authentic love does not imply enduring happiness. I can stay during rough times, however, because I can remember what we had together in the past, and I can picture what we will have together in our future if we care enough to face our problems and work them through. We agree with Reverend Maier when he writes that love is a spirit that changes life. Love is a way of life that is creative and that transforms. However, Maier does not view love as being reserved for a perfect world. ”Love is meant for our imperfect world where things go wrong. Love is meant to be a spirit that works in painful situations. Love is meant to bring meaning into life where nonsense appears to reign.” In other words, love comes into an imperfect world to make it livable.

　　Love is freeing. Love is freely given, not doled out on demand. At the same time, my love for you is not dependent on whether you fulfill my expectations of you. Authentic love does not imply “I’ll love you when you become perfect or when you become what I expect you to become.” Authentic love is not given with strings attached. There is an unconditional quality about love.

　　Love is expansive. If I love you, I encourage you to reach out and develop other relationships. Although our love for each other and our commitment to each other might bar certain actions on our parts, we are not totally and exclusively wedded to each other. It is a pseudolove that cements one person to another in such a way that he or she is not given room to grow. Casey and Vanceburg put this notion well:

　　The honest evidence of our love is our commitment to encouraging another’s full development. We are interdependent personalities who need one another’s presence in order to fulfill our destiny. And yet, we are also separate individuals. We must come to terms with our struggles alone.

　　Love means having a want for the person I love without having a need for that person in order to be complete. If I am nothing without you, then I’m not really free to love you. I love you and you leave, I’ll experience a loss and be sad and lonely, but I’ll still be able to survive. If I am not free to challenge our relationship; nor am I free to challenge and confront you. Because of my fear of losing you, I’ll settle for less than I want, and this settling will surely lead to feelings of resentment.

　　Love means identifying with the person I love. If I love you, I can empathize with you and see the world through your eyes. I can identify with you and see the world through your eyes. I can identify with you because I’m able to see myself in you and you in me. This closeness does not imply a continual “togetherness,” for distance and separation are sometimes essential in a loving relationship. Distance and can intensify a loving bond, and it can help us rediscover ourselves, so that we are able to meet each other in a new way.

　　Love means selfish. I can only love you if I genuinely love, value, appreciate, and respect myself. If I am empty, then all I can give you is my emptiness. If I feel that I’m complete and worthwhile in myself, then I’m able to give to you out of my fullness. One of the best ways for me to give you love is by fully enjoying myself with you.

　　Love involves seeing the potential within the person we love. In my love for another, I view her or him as the person she or he can become, while still accepting who and what the person is now. Goethe’s observation is relevant here: by taking people as they are, we make them worse, but by treating them as if they already were what they ought to be, we help make them better.

　　We conclude this discussion of the meanings that authentic love has for us by sharing a thought from Fromm’s The Art of Loving (1956). His description of mature love sums up the essential characteristics of authentic love quite well:

　　Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. In love this paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

　　愛意味著我了解我所愛的人。我認識到對方的許多方面，不僅是美麗閃光的一面，還有能力上的不足、反復無常和性格上的缺陷。我了解對方的感情和想法，我能體驗到那個人身上的某種本質(zhì)的東西。我能透過對方社交場合的表現(xiàn)和在社會的角色，看到他更深層次的品質(zhì)。

　　愛意味著我關心我所愛的人的幸福。只要這種關心是真誠的，那么它就不會是某種壓抑或占有性的依附。與此相反，我的關心會使我們兩個都不受到束縛。如果我在乎你，我就會關注你的成長，我希望你將來成為一個有所作為的人。因此，對你為完善自己所做的一切，我決不設置障礙，即使你做的事情有時會使我不快。

　　愛意味著尊重我所愛的人的尊嚴。如果我愛你，我會把你看成是獨立的個體，有自己的價值觀、思想和感情，我不會堅持讓你放棄自己的特性，使你變成一個我期望你成為的那種人。我會允許并鼓勵你保持獨立，堅持自己的特色，我會避免把你當作一件東西對待或用你來主要滿足我自身的需要。

　　愛意味著對我所愛的人付責任。如果我愛你，我就會積極對待你的需要。這種責任并不等于我要為你做你自己能夠做到的事情，也不是說我為你管理你的生活。它應該是承認我和我所做的事會對你產(chǎn)生影響，因此我直接與你的幸福和痛苦聯(lián)系在一起。一個人的確可能會傷害或忽視他所愛的人。從這個意義上說，愛包含著我要為我(的生活方式)對你的影響承擔一定的責任。

　　愛意味著和所愛的人共同成長。如果我愛你，我會為了對你的愛而成長。你將是激勵我更加充實自己的動力，我的愛也會使你不斷完善提高。我們因愛與被愛而成長;我們彼此分享積累的豐富經(jīng)驗而又不削減自己的個性。

　　愛意味著能夠承諾我所愛的人。這種承諾并不需要我們相互放棄自身的特性;也不是指我們的這種關系一定要天長地久。這種承諾不僅包含著愿意在痛苦、猶豫、絕望的時候相互支持，也包含著共享平靜與歡樂。

　　愛意味著相信我所愛的人。如果我愛你，我會相信你將接受我的關心與愛意，我會相信你不會故意把我傷害，我會相信你終將發(fā)現(xiàn)我的可愛之處，我會相信你不會把我棄于不顧;我會相信我們是相愛的。如果我們彼此信任，我們就愿意敞開心扉，摘下面具，去掉偽裝，顯示我們真實的自我。

　　愛可以容忍缺點。在愛的關系中，必然會有厭煩的時候，有我想放棄的時候，有關系緊張的時候，有我感到絕望的時候。真愛不僅僅意味著我們能共同分享幸福。在艱難困苦的時期我也能和你在一起，因為我記得我們過去在一起度過的時光，如果我們對問題給予足夠的重視，面對問題并能度過困難時期，我能想像我們將來在一起是個什么樣子。我們同意梅爾教士的觀點，即愛是改變生活的精神力量。愛是一種創(chuàng)造性的生活方式并能使生活改善。但是梅爾并不認為愛是完美世界獨有的。“愛是給予我們這個有問題的不完善的世界的。愛是在痛苦的情況下發(fā)揮作用的精神。愛就是要使看起來無意義的生活變得有意義。”換句話說，愛來到這個不完美的世界使它適合人們居住。

　　愛是自由的行為。愛是自愿地付出，而不是要求之下的施舍。與此同時，我對你的愛并不取決于你是否能滿足我對你的期望。真愛并不意味著“當你成為完美的人或當你成為我所期望的那種人時，我才愛你。”真愛不是帶有附加條件的付出。愛是無條件的。

　　愛是博大的。如果我愛你，我會鼓勵你向外發(fā)展，建立其他的人際關系。雖然我們之間的愛和彼此的承諾不允許我們做某些事情，但是我們并不是完全徹底地拴在一起。把一個人和另一個人拴在一起，而不給予他發(fā)展的空間，這是一種虛假的愛。凱斯和溫斯伯格對這個概念有很好的解釋：

　　我們相互承諾要鼓勵對方充分的發(fā)展，這就真實證明了我們之間的愛。我們是相互依存的，為了完成自己的使命，需要對方的存在。但我們又是不同的個體，我們必須各自面對自己的奮斗。

　　愛意味著我需要我所愛的人，但并不是缺少他就不行。如果沒有你我就無法生存，那么我就不能自由的愛你。我愛你，即使你離開了，即使我失落、難過和孤獨，但我還能活下去。如果我的價值和我的生存過于依賴于你，那我就沒有自由來審視我們之間的關系;也就沒有審視和反駁你的自由。因為我害怕失去你，我就會降低要求，而這種遷就會使我產(chǎn)生不滿情緒。

　　愛意味著理解所愛的人。如果我愛你，我就能與你有同樣的情感，我就能通過你的眼睛去看這世界。我理解你是因為我能夠在你身上看到我自己，并在我自己身上看到你。這種親密無間并不意味著持續(xù)地呆在一起，有時候，距離和分別對于相愛同樣是必要的。距離會加強愛的聯(lián)系，會有助于我們重現(xiàn)認識自己，使我們可以以新的方式面對對方。

　　愛中充滿了自我。只有我能真正地愛著自己，珍視自己，欣賞自己，尊重自己，我才能愛你。如果我生活空虛，那么我能給予你的只能是我的空虛。如果我感到自己是完整的，有價值的，那么我就能讓你分享我的充實。給予我對你的愛，最好的方式就是和你在一起充分享受我的一切。

　　愛包含著看到我所愛的人的潛在能力。我愛那個人，我一方面承認他的現(xiàn)狀，另一方面我現(xiàn)在就視他為他將來能夠成為的那種人。歌德有一句與此相關的評論：我們?nèi)绻凑杖藗兊默F(xiàn)狀來對待他們，會使他們越來越差，要是按照他們應該達到的目標來對待和要求他們，我們就會促使他們變得更好。

　　我們把弗羅姆在《愛的藝術》里闡述的一個觀點介紹給大家，以此來結束我們對真愛含義的論述。他對成熟的愛的歸納極好地總結了真愛的基本特征：

　　成熟的愛是兩人的結合，但又不失各自的完整和特性。愛中有這種矛盾現(xiàn)象：合二為一，卻又一分為二。