爱是人类最美丽、最动人的语言，那么什么才是真正的爱呢？愿下文能给你一些启示……
Love... has it become a four letter word? In many cases, love has become equated with other things such as sex, attention, rewards, or approval. As children, we often learn that if we behave or do as we are told, we will be ‘loved’. Thus our behavior becomes tinted or tainted with a desire to please. We think that love is something that has to be earned. If we are good enough then we will be loved; if we are bad we will not be loved.
In many cases, what is depicted (描述) in movies as love is simply a need for someone or something either a need for security, approval, or sex. No wonder we GREw up confused about love. How many of us were told about the beauty of love and the wonder of sharing love? Instead we were (in most cases) told embarrassingly about the birds and the bees. I remember thinking that ‘no way’ had my parents done that!
I remember feeling starved for attention (which I equated with love). I thought that being in the limelight（引人注目的中心) meant that I was loved; having good grades ensured that my parents and teachers would love me; yet having mediocre(普普通通的) grades ensured that my schoolmates would love me. I was torn between wanting it all and striving to attain a balance where everyone would love me — my parents, my teachers, and my peers. Then many of us came through the days of peace and love thinking that having sex with everyone meant we loved everyone (and more importantly that everyone loved us).
And through it all, we were simply looking for love, as the song says, in all the wrong places. The ongoing search for love and approval led to bouncing back and forth in trying to get approval from everyone we met.
As I look at the current state of affairs and at the status of crime and violence, I see that all of these behaviors are also a cry for love on the part of the perpetrators (作恶者) a cry for attention, for someone to care and to love them unconditionally.
Can we do anything about that? Yes! We can help the world by sending out love and compassion to those who are seen as bad or evil. If we can love them unconditionally (which is different from loving their actions), and see them as needing our compassion, our forgiveness and understanding, our help, rather than hatred（憎恨）, we can help raise the vibrations (震动, 摇动) of the guilty as well as the innocent.
Someone once vandalized (故意破坏) my car. I remember feeling that they had been expressing their anger through this act of vandalism: anger at the world and anger at their feeling of helplessness. Why helpless? Many youth today do not believe they will live past the age of 30, they don't think the planet will survive any longer than that. If we can empathize with them, rather than blame them and judge them, we can help. When we choose to participate in creating a better world with our children (and the children of others), where there is hope, there is ‘a light at the end of the tunnel’, then we are being a positive force in their lives.
