About Love and the Sacrifice of Self
When I was very young, I recall we had a prayer that went something like “… There is no love without the sacrifice of self…” I don’t recall anything more from that prayer, but the message stayed. For most of my formative years, I thought those words were the absolute truth. I thought, “how can you ‘love’ someone if you are unwilling to sacrifice for it?”. Have we not seen movies where the husband goes through innumerous hardships in another city to earn enough money to care for his wife and family? Are there not enough stories written about sacrifices lovers make to finally unite? Well, we have seen all these and more. And possibly, we will have to see much more of them well into the future. Why exactly am I going on a rant about this prayer you ask? I have been thinking about that particular prayer for a few days now, and that helped me revisit it’s meaning. I thought it would be a good idea to document this revision, and hence this story.
When Sangha and I were planning to go out shopping last weekend, I was the first to get ready and get out of the house. Being the more careful among the two of us, she generally stayed back a few more minutes to check if Midgey (our cat), the gas, the windows and the various other things I do not know about were in order. It was only after checking that she usually descends from the seventeenth floor apartment we live in. In the past, I would rush her to get out. Over the course of our relationship, I should say I have changed. Nowadays, I get the car from the distant parking lot we got allotted, move closer to the lift well, and send empty lifts to floor 17.
For the whole of yesterday, I have been wondering, why do I do that? If true love entails ‘sacrifice’, should I not be willing to wait for her? Or was it somehow the act of getting out of the car and sending empty lifts to Sangha so she can wait 30 fewer seconds for the ‘sacrifice’ that I should perform to express my love? There clearly was a tradeoff between the two supposed ‘sacrifices’. Then again, were these actions in any way qualified to be ‘sacrifices’?. Let us for a moment keep aside the idea of romantic love and consider motherly or fatherly love. Does a father think of working hard for the prosperity of the family as a sacrifice? Perhaps, not. Does the mother think she sacrifices her time and energy for the other members of the family? Probably not. Why then should love involve sacrifices? After thinking about this for days now, I think I have a reasonably good answer.
The real crux of the prayer, I feel, lies in the ‘sacrifice of self’ part and not just the sacrifice. Let me take a moment to explain. When you really love someone, you can no longer continue to define your ‘self’ in the manner in which you did in the past. It gets morphed into something larger. You truly believe that the person (or item) you love is a part of your self? Or more accurately, the two coalesce into a larger ‘self’. In effect, love causes someone to transform themselves their ‘self’ into something bigger than just themselves. To illustrate, you love your son, daughter or cat because you think of themselves as an extension of yourself. Their pain hurts you, their happiness makes you smile, their problems make you think, and their wins make you celebrate. In effect, my son and daughter have led to me to change how I viewed my ‘self’ in the past, and create a different self that has space for them.
Interesting, I think the converse may also be true. If you truly cannot think of someone as a part of your ‘self’, you think may not be able to love them. The relationship then boils down to the sum of all sacrifices you have made to make them ‘happy’ in your view. At some point in the future, this makes you compare the value of each other’s sacrifices. Any mismatches here would eventually lead to heart aches.
In conclusion, true love does not call for sacrifices. It calls for the transformation of an individual into a selfless one.
