By Rebecca Kimbel

motivational speaker

Knowing the difference between love and romance can be the difference between success and failure. Love is a feeling of admiration, akin to respect.

We love a sunset, a fawn or a water fall, an intelligent mind or humanitarian quality. Instinctively we desire to protect and preserve what we love. Love is a response to a quality we admire and respect. Lasting love is based on honest and natural qualities which instinctively compel respect, protection and preservation.

Romance finds its basic meaning synonymous with “dream” of “fiction.” It is commonly known as a drama of passion, fascination and obsession propelled through mutual attraction into an emotionally needy, controlling and stormy relationship, destined to end in emotional pain. Anger, emptiness and resentment toward the lover who failed to fulfill ones desires, are common. Romance is an obsession seeking to fulfill itself through the attention and control of someone else.

Love is a “safe harbor in life's storm,” with respect for self and others, in or out of a relationship. Is such love so rare it may not exist? It is certain you are not apt to see or experience it if you don't know what it is or how to recognize it.

We choose mates differently at different times in our lives. Young people make decisions based on biology. When we mature, we choose a mate complimenting our goals. Seniors choose a mate for companionship.

Knowledge helps avoid the pitfalls of choosing a mate that is biologically attractive and intellectually disastrous. Unwise choices based on biology can set many on a path they are unable to recuperate from.

Determining a person's qualities or lack of them is important before getting involved. Why trust a person with your future when they can't trust them to keep an appointment? Why give them the keys to your car when they can't keep a driver's license? Why trust them with your life when they can't remember to feed the dog? Being cute won't fix it.

Ego manufactures illogical daydreams, entertaining us by being sexy enough, loving enough, giving enough, to change someone else into a compassionate caring person who reciprocates. We nurture our addiction to pain, dysfunctional excuses, and biology, without acknowledging our lover has no intention of changing. They are not suffering and your being responsible for them won't fix it. If you have to change someone into what you want, they are NOT IT. Leave then alone. Recognize what you want. Don't be on the wrong plane when the right one comes along.

You are a whole person by your self. Listen to your values, not your hormones. Learn the difference between love and romance and then intelligently seek love.