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 – 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.
Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans and myself from the community of sinners.
There are many tough conversations, but one of the most difficult is between a parent and an adolescent daughter, partly because as a parent we are almost always attempting to relate to someone who is no longer there.
one thing I don’t need is any more apologies i got sorry greetin me at my front door you can keep yrs i don’t know what to do wit em they don’t open doors or bring the sun back they don’t make me happy or get a mornin paper didn’t nobody stop usin my tears to wash cars cuz a sorry.
Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.
Even an animal, if you show genuine affection, gradually trust develops... If you always showing bad face and beating, how can you develop friendship?
The state of empathy, or being empathic, is to perceive the internal frame of reference of another with accuracy and with the emotional components and meanings which pertain thereto as if one were the person.
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