Christopher Salguero, Period 7, 1/3/2024

Love in our Lives and Greek Mythology From a young age we are taught that love is how one person shares their happiness with another and that the only people we should love are those worth loving. It may be easier for us to tell someone we love them when we are younger and our souls are innocent, but this can change over time as we begin to meet new people that affect the way we look at things. Throughout our lives, we all experience love whether it be with a significant other or someone that we have known our entire lives. We can also find love in various ways, such as a platonic love for someone we are close friends with or an intimate love for someone that we have grown a strong romantic bond with. Our perspective on love changes as we grow older; our younger selves are much more lenient on choosing who to love than our older selves are. Children are born with untainted souls that slowly grow tainted as they are exposed to new situations that can change their views on certain topics. This refers to the well-known concept of nature versus nurture, the idea that we are born with a pure heart, and the development of our personality depends on the environment that we are raised in. When we are younger, we are oblivious to the idea that others might cause us harm, so the worry about the people that we express our love for does not exist. When I was about nine or ten years old, I remember visiting my family in Colombia and meeting my youngest cousin for the first time. She told me that she loved me with the biggest smile on her face. This goes to show the mindset of children when speaking of loving someone; they aren’t serious when it comes to determining who these words are meant for. These words are more of a way to show that they care for a person and to show their gratitude for someone. As we grow older the strength of the word love multiplies, and we only use it when speaking about or to someone that we are extremely fond of. There are three types of people in our lives that we would consider to love: friends , family, and romantic partners. Friendly love is the affection that we show for our friends whom we have grown strong bonds with. Despite the conflicts that we might have with our friends, with a strong enough bond that friendship is unbreakable no matter what may happen. Love for our family is one that we are born with, and only grows stronger as we realize how much our family members have done for us. Though we may not like our family members, we are obliged to love them for what they have done for us, and the blood that we share. Romantic love may be one of the strongest types of love we can show for another human being. It is the love that we share with our significant others; the people that we show our affection for, and those that we genuinely love with all of our hearts. It is through the relationships that we develop over time in which we are able to express our love for one another. These relationships can also be found in many pieces of literature, even one of the oldest like the bible. Our most recent Ancient World unit taught us more about religious texts such as the bible, and many stories in the bible also teach us concepts of love. One biblical love story I read about was the story of Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29:14-30). In this story, Jacob offers to work for Laban for seven years in return for his daughter Rachel’s hand in marriage. Laban tricks him however, and makes him marry his elder daughter Leah. Despite being tricked, Jacob’s love for Rachel makes him offer another seven years of labor in order to be able to finally marry her. This story displays a concept of undying loyalty and willingness to make sacrifices for true love. From the youngest points in our lives to the day we die, different forms of love are seen all throughout the world. Whether it be the love we share for others or the love we find in our favorite stories, the concept of love is everlasting. Love always prevails.