Limits are Love.

I grew up in a family (and also a culture) in which there was a lot of love & warmth -- sometimes at the expense of limits or boundaries.

Like children, but into my adulthood, I associated limits & boundaries with lack of love; giving up; quitting; being an outsider; being controlled.

I went out of my way to make others happy; and if someone put limits on me, or didn't go out of their way to make me happy, I associated that with lack of love.

Years of working with a great counselor, and reading a lot on these topics, made me realize that, without limits, love actually has no meaning.

If there were no limits -- then EVERYTHING is love. What would love mean anyway?

If you could be with everyone, what would it even mean to love someone?

If you could do everything, what would it even mean to love your job?

This is an analogy Heidegger uses for life and death too: If we were immortal, then life would be infinity, and EVERYONE would be EVERYTHING -- so what does it even mean for YOU to be alive?

Indeed: Death is necessary for life; and limits are necessary for love.

Limits are love.