As many know, there is a familiar saying that “love equals time.” While it’s true that we naturally gravitate toward activities and relationships that we love, those that satisfy our passions, there is a definite difference between love and time. The saying is partially correct, there is indeed a correlation, but they are not equal.
Time. We can spend it, invest it, waste it, or just pass it. Once gone it’s gone forever.
Love is different. I can give you my time. I can give you my love. I can express my love through the medium of time and attention. As long as the love is not transactional, and is freely given, it’s never gone. It endures. Forever, despite the fact that the time given is irretrievable.
Too many, in fact, most people put love into that transactional, quid pro quo category. We don’t want to appear foolish so we either consciously or unconsciously make love conditional. But that is not really love, it’s only a cheap replica. And sadly seems to be the way of the world at large today. Truth be told, Forrest Gump had it going on.
Love is giving, for its own sake. Period. Whether it be time, effort, goods, emotional support, whatever. A few weeks ago, I was stopped at a traffic light and an elderly man was begging for spare change. Something moved me about his appearance; he impressed me as legitimately being in need. I did something I rarely do unless moved to do so, and this day I was. I rolled my window down and gave him two dollars. And I then intentionally made it transactional. I asked him to do me a favor, go to the back of the van and confirm that my brake lights were working (I already knew they were). My wish was that in addition to the temporal two bucks, I had given him the real gift of a feeling of purpose, a small feeling of pride, no matter how insignificant. On the surface it was transactional, but deeper still it was spiritual.
I realize that these days this may be an unpopular view, possibly considered by the cynical to be extreme in idealistic utopian naivete. However, in actuality, it is supreme in Christian principles. Altruism isn’t dead, it’s not even sleeping, today it’s just resting its eyes for a few minutes.
Kind of like the other old adage that if I give you a dollar, then you have a dollar and I don’t (transactional). But if I share an idea with you, then we both possess it (love).
Of the two base emotions, love and fear, there are so many relationships today that have the appearance of being based in love, but the sad truth is that they’re based on fear, sometimes deep-seated. Fear of loneliness, fear of being deemed foolish, fear of intimacy, fear of being hurt, and the fear that emanates from a feeling of unworthiness. A false situation where veiled compromise supersedes love.
Real agapos love is unaware of any fear…or at least maybe aware but is unfazed, because it does not seek nor require equilibrium. And time has no bearing upon it.
So no, under most circumstances, love does not equal time.