To love someone is to find that in your mind, you simply cannot be happy if the person you love is not happy. You are driven to help the person you love, not because you choose to, not because you want to, but because it is simply inconceivable to do anything else. Love can be a loud thing, making you burst out into a grin at the very thought of the one you love. Love can be a quiet thing, to be shared peacefully and in solitude with the one you love.

Love is a giving thing, saying "Here I am and here I am yours.". To be together with someone, and to face the world together.

I don't think real love is a feeling or a state of being - i.e., "being in love". Love is something that you do. It is respecting someone. It is trusting someone enough to share your thoughts, hopes and fears, or in other words trusting someone to share yourself, especially the screwed up bits. It is being committed to someone, committed enough that you'll forgive them for being human, for screwing up and sometimes hurting you. It's putting their needs ahead of your own selfish desires.

Being "in love"? That's a connection - feeling passion or chemistry, having common interests, and general all around attraction. That's a state of being and that's subject to change. Frequently. There's nothing wrong with it but it should not be confused with love.

[This was written as a part of my Assignment in semester II for subject - Value Education]