Everything We Feel Think Do And Become By Barbara Fredrickson Summary

We live in a wonderfully complex universe, and we are curious about it by nature. Human beings, among all other living creatures, are the epitome of complexity and curiosity. Our curiosity has allowed us to create buildings taller than we could imagine, find a way to get humans into space, create a system to help us communicate on a global level; yet when it comes to love, we as humans have difficulties understanding it. As mentioned before, the universe is extraordinarily complex; and love is one of those complicated things that requires a particular shift in point of view. Barbara Fredrickson, in her “Love 2.0: How Our Supreme Emotion Affects Everything We Feel, Think, Do, and Become,” offers a new perspective of love. Love from “your body’s perspective,” as Fredrickson claims, allows us to approach love in a “scientific” sense. Looking at love from a “scientific” mindset, is nothing more than looking at it as the anatomy of love from a biological and chemical viewpoint. Moreover, in Fredrickson’s view, if we approach love as a “system” rather than a mere emotional connection, we can begin to
Many people view love as something to be romantic, everlasting, unconditional, or something in which you must be confined to a special relationship with whom they call their soul mate; however, the truth is, love does not guarantee either of those things. Love, in Fredrickson’s terms, is “your body’s definition of love, a clear path emerges that cuts through that thicket and leads you to a better life” (Fredrickson 108). Therefore, we can deduce that thinking of love from the perspective of our body can lead us to a better life. But what does this repeated “body’s definition” of love truly mean? Think of love as a theatrical play, where there are three characters responsible for their respective roles. The three characters are the brain, the hormone oxytocin, and the vagus