Have Respect

We have discussed in the past that a virtue is using a part of our character to its fullest potential. The ultimate potential that everything converges on is happiness. Material things are important since without them we can be inhibited and uncomfortable. The ultimate happiness comes from our soul. Our soul gets its greatest satisfaction from friendships. There are necessary friendships such as co-workers and contractors and there are friendships for external pleasure such as those we party with. The rare and lasting ones are those that come from common goodness; when we love someone for who they are. When our affections have an object, the word we use is love. If the object can reciprocate the affection it is far better. A pet can bring more joy than a painting.
We would like to claim we are islands, but in reality, for humans to be happy, they need others. We form friendships doing the things we love and there are certain people we love doing things with. The word love is used in a broad context for the things we desire and the people we enjoy being around. Ethics is a study on how to keep friendships. We should understand, treat well and be friendly to everyone. But what we love is inherent, something within ourselves. There are varying degrees of love that have different objectives too; we have more passion toward some things more than others. Our preferences can change over time. Sometimes there is buyers remorse when it wasn't what we expected and sometimes we mature and it is a slow change. When two people have an extreme amount of love that wants no more than to be with a certain person because of who they are, we call it falling in love. Saying "I love you" is assumed to mean this particular kind of love. Unless there is an extreme personality change, this kind of love doesn't change.  
All pleasures have the potential to take away from the rest of our life. Love can be one of those. A person might stay in an abusive relationships due to it. To stay happy within ourselves, we have to take control of our passions at times to make sure other valuable things aren't taken for granted. A person can become obsessed with their job, music, art, food or a number of other things. The more the passion there is, the more difficult it is; so we shouldn't judge others. But we aim for the mean; enjoying what we love without causing damage to what we care about.
Next we will look at why we need friendships. A friendly person wishes everyone well even though they don't know them and have no idea if they would love them. Love is for a person we know and friendship is for both those we interact with incidentally and those we don't know. We can be friendly to a coworker while belonging to a country means we are all friends in a certain respect. It is expected that Representatives use ethics and treat each other with respect and have good character. That is what it means to be a friend.