Love is a decision. A decision to love the other person above oneself. For there could be one hundred reasons why another person can became less lovable.

To love in spite of these reasons is therefore an act of the will. It is a decision. Love is sometimes volitional rather than emotional.

After years of relationship, we often hear of couples swearing they had "fallen out of love." This is because we all are victims of the myth of fairy tales which end with the partners "living happily ever after." Snow White refuses to acknowledge that Prince Charming has some traits of the wicked witch and that conflicts are signs that the relationship is not working. She therefore wishes the frog had remained a toad.

"Falling in love" with all its fireworks is not the same as "staying in love." The first is effortless; the second a litany of work and sacrifice. Once one grasps the ephemeral, temporary nature of falling in love and the inevitability of its ending - then the opportunity for genuine love begins.

M. Scott Peck wrote that love can exist without the feeling of love as when a partner acts lovingly despite the fact that he does not "feel loving." It is the acknowledgement, he says, of "falling out of love" that marks the "beginning of the work of its marriage, not its end."

When it comes to love, clichés abound. The facetious say that love is an island of emotions surrounded by a sea of expenses. On the other hand, it is one who loves money who never has enough. The first million only whets up for two or more millions.

The Joneses are always better. Try telling that to Gordon Gekko of Wall Street though.

People who mistake money as an end rather than a means to a goal suffer the fate of feeling loneliest when they are on top. Why did billionaire Howard Hughes (insulated with wealth) become a recluse and shot himself? And Marilyn Monroe?

A worst kind of love is called narcissism or self-love which can lead to tragic ends. The word is coined from the Greek god Narcissus who had such attractive physical attributes that he spent the whole day admiring his reflection on the river. One day, while adoring himself, he slipped into the river and drowned himself.

Yet the poets say it all: The only misery in the world is not in not being loved - only in not loving. Or that the true measure of love is to love without measure. And so on.

The Prophet Kahlil Gibran accurately admonished lovers: "Fill each other's cup but drink not from the same cup…"

Further, Kahlil says: "Lovers must not gaze into each others' eyes but look forward together in the same direction."

For true love is not possessive: it loves unconditionally even at the risk of losing one's beloved. Barbara Streisand's song lyrics sum it all up: Loving someone means setting him free. If he comes back, he is truly yours, if not, then he was not meant to be, in the first place." Or words to that effect.

Wayne Dryer further quoted: Love is the ability and the willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

On the other hand, a man who truly loves is not fearful of death but acknowledges the possibility of the latter as a constant companion. The certainty of death defines the limits of his time and of love and therefore guides him to love his best - here and now.

Meantime, love of country is one of the noblest kind of love for it encompasses a wide sea of humanity, strangers mostly, and requires a dedication that borders on martyrdom. Stories of heroes have filled our history books and accounts of bravery and patriotism continue to edify the living far beyond the heroes' death.

The Greeks, on the other hand, distinguish between two kinds of love: eros which is love for those we are attracted to and agape which is to love a person for what he is and he is not. This kind of love does not demand reciprocity - it is by itself complete and indivisible.

The mystery of love is such that it is self-replenishing: the more one gives love, the more this enlarges rather than diminishes the person. Often it is the person who seeks to be loved who does not find it and those who love others enough to forget themselves who eventually become lovable.

I have discovered that the opposite of love is not hate but fear. Fear of being rejected, fear of loving too much. It is part of the tragedy of our times.

There is so much mystery in the thing they call love. After all it is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.

It is worth pondering on these thoughts as we celebrate Valentine's Day this month of February.

Happy Valentine's Day!