Love is freeing. Love is freely given, not doled out on demand. At the same time, my love foryou is not dependent on whether you fulfill my expectations of you. Authentic love does notimply “I'll love you when you become perfect or when you become what I expect you tobecome.” Authentic love is not given with strings attached. There is an unconditional qualityabout love.

　　愛是自由的行為。愛是自愿地付出，而不是要求之下的施舍。與此同時，我對你的愛并不取決于你是否能滿足我對你的期望。真愛并不意味著“當你成為完美的人或當你成為我所期望的那種人時，我才愛你。”真愛不是帶有附加條件的付出。愛是無條件的。

　　Love is expansive. If I love you, I encourage you to reach out and develop other relationships. Although our love for each other and our commitment to each other might bar certain actionson our parts, we are not totally and exclusively wedded to each other. It is a pseudolove thatcements one person to another in such a way that he or she is not given room to grow. Caseyand Vanceburg put this notion well:

　　愛是博大的。如果我愛你，我會鼓勵你向外發(fā)展，建立其他的人際關(guān)系。雖然我們之間的愛和彼此的承諾不允許我們做某些事情，但是我們并不是完全徹底地拴在一起。把一個人和另一個人拴在一起，而不給予他發(fā)展的空間，這是一種虛假的愛。凱斯和溫斯伯格對這個概念有很好的解釋：

　　The honest evidence of our love is our commitment to encouraging another's fulldevelopment. We are interdependent personalities who need one another's presence in orderto fulfill our destiny. And yet, we are also separate individuals. We must come to terms withour struggles alone.

　　我們相互承諾要鼓勵對方充分的發(fā)展，這就真實證明了我們之間的愛。我們是相互依存的，為了完成自己的使命，需要對方的存在。但我們又是不同的個體，我們必須各自面對自己的奮斗。

　　Love means having a want for the person I love without having a need for that person in orderto be complete. If I am nothing without you, then I'm not really free to love you. I love you andyou leave, I'll experience a loss and be sad and lonely, but I'll still be able to survive. If I am notfree to challenge our relationship; nor am I free to challenge and confront you. Because ofmy fear of losing you, I'll settle for less than I want, and this settling will surely lead to feelingsof resentment.

　　愛意味著我需要我所愛的人，但并不是缺少他就不行。如果沒有你我就無法生存，那么我就不能自由的愛你。我愛你，即使你離開了，即使我失落、難過和孤獨，但我還能活下去。如果我的價值和我的生存過于依賴于你，那我就沒有自由來審視我們之間的關(guān)系;也就沒有審視和反駁你的自由。因為我害怕失去你，我就會降低要求，而這種遷就會使我產(chǎn)生不滿情緒。

　　Love means identifying with the person I love. If I love you, I can empathize with you and seethe world through your eyes. I can identify with you and see the world through your eyes. Ican identify with you because I'm able to see myself in you and you in me. This closeness doesnot imply a continual “togetherness,” for distance and separation are sometimes essential ina loving relationship. Distance and can intensify a loving bond, and it can help us rediscoverourselves, so that we are able to meet each other in a new way.

　　愛意味著理解所愛的人。如果我愛你，我就能與你有同樣的情感，我就能通過你的眼睛去看這世界。我理解你是因為我能夠在你身上看到我自己，并在我自己身上看到你。這種親密無間并不意味著持續(xù)地呆在一起，有時候，距離和分別對于相愛同樣是必要的。距離會加強愛的聯(lián)系，會有助于我們重現(xiàn)認識自己，使我們可以以新的方式面對對方。

　　Love means selfish. I can only love you if I genuinely love, value, appreciate, and respectmyself. If I am empty, then all I can give you is my emptiness. If I feel that I'm complete andworthwhile in myself, then I'm able to give to you out of my fullness. One of the best ways forme to give you love is by fully enjoying myself with you.

　　愛中充滿了自我。只有我能真正地愛著自己，珍視自己，欣賞自己，尊重自己，我才能愛你。如果我生活空虛，那么我能給予你的只能是我的空虛。如果我感到自己是完整的，有價值的，那么我就能讓你分享我的充實。給予我對你的愛，最好的方式就是和你在一起充分享受我的一切。

　　Love involves seeing the potential within the person we love. In my love for another, I view heror him as the person she or he can become, while still accepting who and what the person isnow. Goethe's observation is relevant here: by taking people as they are, we make themworse, but by treating them as if they already were what they ought to be, we help make thembetter.

　　愛包含著看到我所愛的人的潛在能力。我愛那個人，我一方面承認他的現(xiàn)狀，另一方面我現(xiàn)在就視他為他將來能夠成為的那種人。歌德有一句與此相關(guān)的評論：我們?nèi)绻�按照人們的現(xiàn)狀來對待他們，會使他們越來越差，要是按照他們應該達到的目標來對待和要求他們，我們就會促使他們變得更好。

　　We conclude this discussion of the meanings that authentic love has for us by sharing athought from Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956). His description of mature love sums up theessential characteristics of authentic love quite well:

　　我們把弗羅姆在《愛的藝術(shù)》里闡述的一個觀點介紹給大家，以此來結(jié)束我們對真愛含義的論述。他對成熟的愛的歸納極好地總結(jié)了真愛的基本特征：

　　Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality. Inlove this paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

　　成熟的愛是兩人的結(jié)合，但又不失各自的完整和特性。愛中有這種矛盾現(xiàn)象：合二為一，卻又一分為二。

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