Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.
Interpretation
Love can be seen as a mutually beneficial arrangement between two individuals based on their perceived value and expectations.
In this quote, Erich Fromm suggests that love is not purely an emotional connection but also involves a practical exchange between two people who assess their own worth and that of their partner in the context of a relationship. This perspective emphasizes that individuals often engage in romantic partnerships based on what they can gain, leading to a transactional view of love where both parties seek fulfillment based on mutual benefit and their respective positions in the interpersonal 'market'.
In practice
During a relationship seminar, one could use this quote to discuss the transactional aspects of modern love.
Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together; even whether there is harmony or conflict; joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves from the essence of their existence, that they are only one with each other by being one with themselves, rather than by fleeing from themselves.
Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern β and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.
When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and understand people accurately is compromised.
We have to defend the migrant workers and give them our support and demand that they have the rights that workers here have from day one, but absolutely hate the system that forces people to leave their country, leave their homes, leave their families, to go somewhere else to be exploited.
The obligation to receive reduces our ability to choose whom we wish to be indebted to and puts that power in the hands of others.
I always supported the women I worked with having time off to go to parent-teacher conferences and doctors' appointments or bringing their infants into the office.
I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.
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