In a perfect world, everyone is perfectly content with themselves, with who they are, and “in love” with themselves such that they are happy and radiant without needing the validation or support of anyone, even if they choose, with their happiness, to share that happiness with other happy people. This is a short definition of heaven, at least as understood socially and intrapsychically.
In a perfect world, in other words, the people who feel the compulsive need to “serve” others, in order to meet their own unmet needs, have no work. They would, instead, become the objects of compassion themselves. “Why so much anxiety about saving the world?”, they would be told. “The world is saved.”
You have to always look to the end goal, and work backwards. Seen from this perspective, much of what passes for compassion and love is simply mislabeled mania. It is easy to deflect eyes from your own inner emotional world when you are always “doing” for others. Obviously, this is the root nature of what is called codependence. The “Co” references the often overlooked second lane on that street going the other way. It is fine to be codependent with dogs. They are kids who never grow up and can’t be expected to grow up. It is not fine to be this way with human beings. It is a type of emotional assault which I might term emotional sapping (in both the sucking sense, and the military sense of undermining).
One other clarifying comment I wanted to make is that if we accept that souls are eternal, there are, finally, no parents and no children. The relations of any given set of souls is that of their relative development, not their birth order on this planet. This leads quickly to the thought that there is no incest in the other plane, which is a gross thought, but then to the further thought that we get everything backwards here, and misunderstand, consistently, what matters.
Sex is basically a means of resolving physical and emotional tension, which evolved as a means of propagating physical existence on this planet. It is a very low level of relatedness when it comes to soul contact. What is beautiful is not great sex, but great love, great seeing, the sharing of light and love and laughter instantly and completely.
Imagine seeing all the souls for a mile around you, without the walls. Imagine they were all happy, and we all lived in this endless quiet ocean. Seeing their happiness would make you happy. This is close, I think, to what is meant by pure love.
It is obviously true that helping people build themselves, their spirits, their egos, their capacities is work, and it is work undertaken with a vision of who they can be, and with the expectation of one day realizing the happiness of seeing them succeed, of becoming who they wanted to be, or were meant to be, as you both understand it. This happiness, though, is the goal. The rest, what we call love, is a mature process of delayed gratification. It is self oriented, in that you want to feel something, but selfless, in that you take no direct benefit from the success of others.
Few thoughts.