Acts of love

I love to please those who are dear to me. I like to help them get what they want and not get what they don't want. I like to make them feel nice, whether by a warm smile, a few words, a small act of kindness or something more. Unless I am having a very bad day, I gladly do whatever my loved ones ask of me, and a lot more besides. (Actually, my loved ones rarely ask me to do anything for them, and often do things for me to make me feel nice! I think that that is often how things are when individuals are very dear to each other. We want to do things for one another.)

I particularly enjoy fulfilling loved ones' ‘impossible dreams’, whether it be getting a dear friend's favourite author to come to dinner, or making it possible for a young person to meet and spend time with the guitarist of his favourite supergroup. But I also find it pleasurable to do something as simple as offering to switch on a light as I pass a room where a loved one is reading and either has not noticed that it has grown dark or has not wanted to leave his or her comfortable chair to turn the light on.

With the possible exception of my impossible wish granting activities which are for me inherently interesting problem-solving exercises as much as anything else, I think that any able-bodied person in a good relationship of any kind engages in these kinds of service without even thinking of it as serving.

This is love-based service, and it is always wholehearted, never half-hearted. It cannot be extracted from the unwilling. You cannot get it by demanding it, or through manipulation, coercion or threats. It is intrinsically motivated, not extrinsically motivated – a gift freely given, not sought.

Love-based service is nothing to do with submission, submitting or being submissive. The strongest leader and the most dominant alpha person are as likely to render love-based service as anyone else. Nor does it have anything to do with gender. It is simply what people do for once another when they actively and deeply care about one another.

Notes

Other kinds of service include service for money (as in earning a living), self-sacrifical service (service given grudgingly or half-heartedly, out of a sense of duty), fear-based service (service extracted from the unwilling, coercively, by force or threat of force), and service rendered by those who derive erotic gratification from serving and service-orientated submission. I will say more about this in a future article.

the boss

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2005 Mar 11 - 04:29 | login or register to post comments | latest article | previous article | next article |

love-based service

I think that when we are doing love-based service, we hardly think of it as service - it's something natural, spontaneous and instinctive. If we are thinking "I'm doing this for love", then it isn't really so. There's some selfish attitude in there. Love comes not from our egos, but through us from somewhere "higher", beyond us, in another dimension or however you want to say it. "I" do not do love. Ego is incapable of love, that's why it is so important to get our egos out of the way.

Excuse the rambling nature of this comment, I'm trying to set down half-baked thoughts.

Malcolm

by Malcolm on 2005 Mar 12 - 04:03 | login or register to post comments

Exactly!

I think that when we are doing love-based service, we hardly think of it as service - it's something natural, spontaneous and instinctive. If we are thinking "I'm doing this for love", then it isn't really so.

So true, Malcolm! It is only recently that someone pointed out to me that the things I and most others willingly do count as service.

The second kind of service you refer to is what I call self-sacrificial service, and I think it is pernicious and tends to be associated with emotional blackmail and that hideous 'martyr' attitude some dutiful servers have.

by the boss on 2005 Mar 12 - 04:36 | login or register to post comments

Different ways of showing love

Many people show their love by doing kind and helpful things for those they love. My husband is this kind of person. This weekend he detailed my car for me. He will do all kinds of jobs like this for me to show me that he loves me. Usually I don't even have to ask. He just notices what I need and does it.

I have to work very hard to remember to do special acts of service for him. It doesn't come naturally to me because I am not naturally task oriented. I have to constantly remind myself to try to make him food that he likes or do housework that will please him. This really shows him love.

My husband is very task oriented and always working around the house on his days off. One day he was a little under the weather he lay on the bed and we watched TV together all day and chatted. To me it was delightful to have his total attention for the whole day! I wasn't happy he wasn't feeling well of course but it was so nice that he didn't have to work on tasks all day. For me having his relaxed attention for the day was much nicer than having him do all sorts of thoughtful tasks around the house.

We both have to work constantly to try to speak the other person's ‘language’ and not just our own.

(See also this article.)

by forty something wife on 2005 Mar 13 - 06:46 | login or register to post comments

Different individuals have different preferences

I agree, Forty-something wife. That is why I wrote:

I like to help them get what they want and not get what they don't want. I like to make them feel nice, whether by a warm smile, a few words, a small act of kindness or something more.

Perhaps my title was misleading. I include everything in “help them get what they want and not get what they don't want”, I was not referring just to ‘acts of service’ narrowly construed. Moreover, not everyone wants or needs a lot of expressions of love. Some have a particular desire to be genuinely and deeply respected, say, and if I were with such a person, I would naturally want to communicate my respect. That sort of thing is all included in what I meant by “help[ing] them get what they want and not get what they don't want”.

by the boss on 2005 Mar 13 - 08:15 | login or register to post comments

Giving and Receiving in Love.

Someone I love very dearly and I have known for twenty years visited me this weekend. He brought me a little gift - but although the gift was lovely and well thought out, because it was something he knew I would love to have - he also gave me a letter.

The letter was short - but it finished by saying, 'Thanks for standing by me all these years, you've been great. XXX.'

I was in buckets of tears by this short sentence, not because he was thanking me - but conversely, because, in fact, he is the one that has given ME so much love and trust over the years, and without him my life would have been all the poorer.

He is my son.

I think what I am trying to say is that you reap what you sow, and this also transfers into consensual adult relationships, along the lines of what I often see on this website.

Occasionally in my life, not often, but now and then, I have met people who simply give, asking nothing in return. This is true giving. One should never give to expect a 'thank you', because then it is a gift with conditions.

If you truly love someone, then ..... just give. The actual act makes you feel so good - because you see how happy it makes them - and in an equal and loving relationship it will come back to you a hundredfold.

It's a very nice feeling.

Hope you all understand what I'm trying to say.

Lois Lane.

by Lois Lane on 2005 Mar 13 - 19:55 | login or register to post comments

You are so right...!

I love the way that you've put this, Malcolm, and it's the way I've always thought of it -- "being" love -- being loving, that is -- means placing my *self* out of the way. I often think on my good days that I am, or I try consciously to be, an instrument that God's love can pour through. On my bad days, well, that's just my 'ol ego trying to reassert its primacy again and again, to let everybody know that it exists! Thanks for being so very clear on this point; it wasn't rambling at all. Best, SA

by SA on 2005 Mar 14 - 01:20 | login or register to post comments

Wrong word

With respect, "service" is the wrong word for what you're talking about. Service is a part of submission. If you're referring to something else, use a different word.

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2005 Mar 27 - 10:39 | login or register to post comments

A True Servant

I want to add a commment to this. My husband came up to me a little over a week ago and held me tightly. Then he told me that he wanted to hold me more and he knows that it is my love language. I was so overwhelemed by that. I was so deeply touched.

My husband is a man who loves to give. I have always known him to give of himself. He is a servant. Not a slave but a man who enjoys helping others. He is always the first one to respond in a crisis, never fearing for his own safety. If someone needs a job he will search for one, if one of our children need him he is there with advice or a shoulder to cry on. At work he is known as the problem solver and he really is one.

When he was speaking about love languages it touched my heart like nothing else ever has. I know what his is and I admire him and just enjoy being with him.

We have had a Taken In Hand relationship for almost a year now and I know that he can assert himself at any time with me. But our relationship has been a little different in the passed 6 weeks. I almost died from a severe allergic reaction to an antibiotic and my husband was planning my funeral. Then while I was recovering from that I became ill. Anyway.. He has wanted me to take it easy and totally recover. There have been times through this health issue that he took me in hand, however, not physically at the time because he didn't feel I could handle it. It all goes along with his generosity in understanding how I feel. Even to put up with some of the attitude I have expressed in recent weeks. I know that he loves me dearly and I him, I also know that he won't put up with a bunch of nonsense.

Where the rubber meets the road is I feel so blessed to have him in my life. I love who he is and how he not only responds with me but to others as well.

I have been able to return to my classroom and I have pictures of my family up. One of the parents of a student came up to me and was looking at a photo of my husband and myself and said "he is a gentle giant". And he really is!

He is gentle, kind, trustworthy, loving and assertive when need be.

I appreciate your article the boss. Thank you.

by Kat on 2005 Apr 14 - 02:10 | login or register to post comments

Is servant-leadership always part of these relationships?

Is servant-leadership always part of these Taken In Hand relationships or is the wife sometimes a servant as well as a follower?

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2005 Jun 29 - 22:21 | login or register to post comments

agreement

I am in agreement with your thought of genuine affection for another is natural, spontaneous, and instinctive to the heart and to the touch and most importantly to one's spirit. I never thought of the words of love as being dominant or submissive or service-based until I became educated in the most unorthodox manner. It was shocking to find out the difference between "vanilla love" and "BDSM Love" or however you may want to phrase it when you get right down to the bottom line, if you know what I mean. True feeling is what feels natural and true to one's own concept of affection without words or phrases or complications for a touch can say more than a million words ever could say in the end.

by a Taken In Hand reader on 2006 Feb 28 - 12:18 | login or register to post comments

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