The art of loving

Everyone longs for love. Yet not everyone has a concrete answer for what it is. I couldn’t figure out a romantic relationship when I was young. So, as it was meant to be, my first love failed in the end. Pathetically, I still couldn’t navigate love even after going through to love and be loved.

What is love? I didn’t find the answer from either my family or my school until I read the book called The Art of Loving by psychologist Erich Fromm. It says that love, rather than simply a feeling, is an art and an ability that entails long-term learning.

Both my first love and I couldn’t get enough love from our families. When two people with the inability to love decided to be together, the relationship was thus doomed to fail. Family should have been the very place where each of us acquires the capability of love. Babies keep receiving love unconditionally because it is their formative years to foster the ability to love. With sufficient love stored in our hearts, we can gradually learn to love conditionally, little by little, and then learn to give out our love. Only when two people have the capacity to love with no strings attached, are they able to develop a healthy and lasting relationship and build up a new family eventually. The order should be progressive as art learning because it requires a lot of time to be devoted and it should even become a lifelong learning journey.

Love. Get it before you give it.

Unfortunately, many people are born and raised in unloving families, which makes it too difficult for them to have love without conditions. Our parents’ generation has put compliance front and centre in their parenting philosophy, aiming to tame the children to be obedient. One of my relatives bragged about his parenting story. Even though his daughter cried nonstop in infancy, he never cuddled her immediately and only did so until she stopped crying. By doing this kind of drilling, he attempted to instil in her daughter that cuddling came with a “price”. If the baby wanted to get hugged, she needed to stop crying first. Growing up under such circumstances, how can children develop their capabilities to love? She was rejected by her father even in early childhood; her emotional needs were neglected. Consequently, she can’t even love herself, let alone love others.

原文：

愛，每個人都很渴求，但愛是什麼卻不是每個人都可以具體回答。年輕時的我一直都不明白愛情，我的初戀順理成章以分手收場，更可悲是經歷了戀愛，卻仍然不懂愛。

什麼是愛？家庭沒有教導我，學校没有教導我，直至遇到心理學家佛洛姆（Erich Fromm）的《愛的藝術》(The Art of Loving）。書本形容愛情是一門藝術，是要長時間學習的一種能力，而不是一種感覺。

我和我的初戀情人，在家庭中都得不到足夠的愛，兩個没有愛的能力的人走在一起，關係失敗確實難以避免。家庭，本來應該是每一個人，獲得愛的能力的基礎。嬰孩不停地接受無條件的愛，這是培養愛的能力的至關重要時期，心靈儲存足夠的愛，才慢慢學習有條件的愛，再慢慢學習如何去付出愛。兩個有足夠能力付出愛的人走在一起，才能成就成熟的愛情關係，建立新的家庭。這個順序是漸漸的，像學習藝術一樣需要很長時間，甚至應該是一生一世的功課。

給予愛之前，先要得到愛。

可惜，很多人成長於缺乏愛的家庭，難以得到無條件的愛。我們上一代父母強調服從的教育，目標就是要孩子聽話。我有位親戚經常沾沾自喜地分享，女兒在嬰孩階段經常哭鬧，他都不會立即擁抱她，要她停止哭泣才會擁抱她，藉此訓練她，擁抱是有條件的，讓她知道不哭才能得到擁抱。這種情況下成長的孩子，怎能有足夠愛的能力？她由嬰兒開始已經被拒絕，情感需要不被尊重，不要說去愛人，連愛自己都做不到。