Unconditional love

'Love is not love/ Which alteration finds/ Or bends with the remover to remove...,' wrote the Bard. He was pointing towards unconditional and eternal love. Is it possible to have so much and so deep a love for anyone? It is said that filial love comes close to unconditional love.

Unconditional love implies acceptance and the absence of expectations. Often, even parents have expectations for their children: doing well in life and in their careers, and taking care of them in their senior years.

Parents are ambitious for their children and would like to see them run the rat race, earn money and receive society's adulation. Parents often share pictures of their child's graduation, first job or an award on social media. It is almost as if their achievements have become their parents' identity. What of those who are not in the top league? What are they worth to their parents?


Do we continue to prize academic and professional achievement above all else? Is work the only way our children become real to us? Is academic and professional advancement the only life experience that counts for anything in our society? Is it possible we could end up valuing societal expectations and our own more than a child's life and happiness?

Isabel Allende put things in perspective: 'Accept the children the way we accept trees with gratitude - because they are a blessing - but do not have expectations or desires. You don't expect trees to change; you love them as they are.'