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.
爱是自由的行为。爱是自愿地付出，而不是要求之下的施舍。与此同时，我对你的爱并不取决于你是否能满足我对你的期望。真爱并不意味着“当你成为完美的人或当你成为我所期望的那种人时，我才爱你。”真爱不是带有附加条件的付出。爱是无条件的。
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:
爱是博大的。如果我爱你，我会鼓励你向外发展，建立其他的人际关系。虽然我们之间的爱和彼此的承诺不允许我们做某些事情，但是我们并不是完全彻底地拴在一起。把一个人和另一个人拴在一起，而不给予他发展的空间，这是一种虚假的爱。凯斯和温斯伯格对这个概念有很好的解释：
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.
我们相互承诺要鼓励对方充分的发展，这就真实证明了我们之间的爱。我们是相互依存的，为了完成自己的使命，需要对方的存在。但我们又是不同的个体，我们必须各自面对自己的奋斗。
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.
爱意味着我需要我所爱的人，但并不是缺少他就不行。如果没有你我就无法生存，那么我就不能自由的爱你。我爱你，即使你离开了，即使我失落、难过和孤独，但我还能活下去。如果我的价值和我的生存过于依赖于你，那我就没有自由来审视我们之间的关系;也就没有审视和反驳你的自由。因为我害怕失去你，我就会降低要求，而这种迁就会使我产生不满情绪。
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.
爱意味着理解所爱的人。如果我爱你，我就能与你有同样的情感，我就能通过你的眼睛去看这世界。我理解你是因为我能够在你身上看到我自己，并在我自己身上看到你。这种亲密无间并不意味着持续地呆在一起，有时候，距离和分别对于相爱同样是必要的。距离会加强爱的联系，会有助于我们重现认识自己，使我们可以以新的方式面对对方。
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.
爱中充满了自我。只有我能真正地爱着自己，珍视自己，欣赏自己，尊重自己，我才能爱你。如果我生活空虚，那么我能给予你的只能是我的空虚。如果我感到自己是完整的，有价值的，那么我就能让你分享我的充实。给予我对你的爱，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.
爱包含着看到我所爱的人的潜在能力。我爱那个人，我一方面承认他的现状，另一方面我现在就视他为他将来能够成为的那种人。歌德有一句与此相关的评论：我们如果按照人们的现状来对待他们，会使他们越来越差，要是按照他们应该达到的目标来对待和要求他们，我们就会促使他们变得更好。
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:
我们把弗罗姆在《爱的艺术》里阐述的一个观点介绍给大家，以此来结束我们对真爱含义的论述。他对成熟的爱的归纳极好地总结了真爱的基本特征：
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.
成熟的爱是两人的结合，但又不失各自的完整和特性。爱中有这种矛盾现象：合二为一，却又一分为二。
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