A lot of people compare the feeling of falling in love to the feeling of having butterflies in their stomachs.
What these people often overlook is that a butterfly's lifecycle actually consists of four stages. Being a butterfly is just one of them. Before that, it's an egg. Once that egg hatches, it's a caterpillar. After that, it reaches the cocoon stage. Finally, it transforms into what many people "in love" won’t shut up about: a butterfly.
However, that brief time of stereotypical beauty that people often equate with love is very short-lived. The average butterfly species only spends about two weeks of their lives as butterflies. Then they die.
Why would you want to base the definition of love around a creature that reaches its peak at the end of its life? Finding beauty in something only when it’s just about to die perpetuates the idea of love as something flighty and, ultimately, temporary. I recognize that love doesn’t need to last forever for it to be considered love. There is still immense depth and beauty in short-term love. However, this blog entry focuses on long-term love.
Why would you base the definition of love on just one out of four phases of a creature’s life? To make things even worse, the one phase that many lovers focus on is the one in which the creature is at its most “beautiful” stage in life. Um, superficial, much?
At its best, love creates an environment in which people can grow together. That being said, we should really focus our fascination on the first three phases of a butterfly’s lifespan: from egg to caterpillar to cocoon. So focused on the end result, we often forget what it actually takes for the butterfly to become this universal symbol of beauty and love.
So the next time you’re looking for long-term love, don’t seek out the fleeting flutter of a butterfly. Look for an egg instead. While it may not be as pretty, it holds much more potential. You’ll reap the benefits of watching love grow from egg to caterpillar to cocoon, and finally, to butterfly.