Why Love Is More Than a Feeling

 

 

“What if love were less about falling and more about choosing, shaping, and practicing every day?”

We often speak of love as something we fall into. The language is everywhere—songs, films, novels. Love is pictured as a river sweeping us away, an accident of the heart, a force we cannot resist. It sounds romantic, but it also makes love seem like something outside our control, something that just happens to us.

The psychologist Erich Fromm challenged that idea. He wrote that love is not a passion we are overtaken by, but an action—“the practice of human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as a result of compulsion.” In other words, love isn’t an accident of fate. Love is a choice, an act of freedom, a discipline we practice daily.

To explore this idea, let me share a short story.

The Parable of the Two Bridges

A young man once came to an old teacher with a restless heart.

“Master,” he said, “I have fallen in love. It is like being swept into a river. I am carried along, helpless, unable to resist. Surely this is love!”

The teacher smiled gently. “You have mistaken the flood for the bridge.”

The young man frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Falling into love is like being caught by a river’s current,” said the teacher. “It is powerful, but it is not yours. It drags you where it will, sometimes into clear water, sometimes against sharp rocks. That is passion, not love.”

“And the bridge?” asked the young man.

“The bridge,” the teacher replied, “is what you build, plank by plank, when you choose to love. Each day you lay down care, respect, patience, and kindness. Each day you walk across, freely, toward the other. That is love—not the rush that seizes you, but the steady work that frees you both.”

The young man thought for a long time. “Then love is not what I fall into, but what I build.”

The teacher nodded. “Yes. And because you build it in freedom, you are responsible for whether the bridge holds—or crumbles.”

Rethinking Love as Responsibility

When we see love as something we “fall into,” we give up a measure of responsibility. If the feeling fades, we assume nothing can be done. But if love is something we practice—an act of freedom—we remain accountable for how we nurture it.

This reframing matters in both intimate and social relationships. In a marriage or partnership, it reminds us that love is not only about passion but about the daily acts of listening, kindness, and forgiveness. In the broader community, it challenges us to extend love outward—through justice, compassion, and solidarity—not because we are compelled, but because we freely choose to act in love.

Love, then, is less about falling and more about building. It is not the river that sweeps us away, but the bridge we create and cross each day.

A Question for You

When you think about your own life, where have you been swept along by the river of passion—and where have you chosen to build the bridge of love?