I recently heard that the opposite of love is envy. I would rather say that the opposite of love is basically every negative emotion, that is fear, anger, hate etc because in true, deep not superficial love there is no negative emotion but after Plato's conclusion we could really say that the opposite of love is envy. I am curious to know how we can turn envy into admiration? Those are in fact 2 sides of the same coin, the ugly and the beautiful side. If we take 2 painters as an example, one is excellent and the other one is worse and envies the first one and no matter how much he practices to become excellent, somehow the first one is always better in his eyes or we could say that could be objective, not subjective point of view. Or we can observe a man without legs and his helper who is a normal, healthy man, what if a man without legs envies his helper, no matter how hard the helper could try to please him? For the envious, nothing really matters. Perhaps that is a bit morbid example but that striking difference is the point. Something we could never have, we have to accept and love or admire the other who has it. There is pain which has to be transformed into happiness in fact. For envious one his "object" of envy becomes quite an obsession. Life obsession. You could say find consolation in yourself, there is something positive in your position or something else which could be developed, after all, we can't have it all in life. But the envious painter doesn't want to become a sculptor even if he could be excellent if you would tell him that, he wants painting. You could say to the man without legs, your helper has to work hard, has a lot more obligations than you.. But somehow it's not enough, nothing is enough. What you say can be the truth but even with a hard work, a normal man has much more freedom...
We could compare the same way men and women. Men are stronger, bigger in general terms. Women can't never be like men and in some women there is a dissatisfaction but in most, - admiration. Men must work hard and always be strong while women don't really have to. But men have more freedom, the more freedom you have, the more you are better at something, you have more obligations than people who are under you and you could for your work have more admiration of people. That is what envious can't get rid of. His position is rather of a passive, limited one.
In case of women and men there is love, there is admiration. So, I say that admiration can be defined as letting go of something you can't have in fact, something in which other side is better and you have to admire. Somehow it seems to me to be sick and abnormal, like mutual sadomasochism. Natural sadomasochism. A dependent state. But love is not freedom, it's dependence, to surrender yourself to another half. So to be in love, you have to admire and let yourself be dependent on someone, in fact, liking to be dependent.

Now, to be truly in love, to truly admire and let ourselves be dependent, we have to have perfect half to surrender. The envious painter could have the greatest teacher, a man without legs could have helper who fulfill his every need, a in case of man and woman, the other half is our soul mate. So, love is admiration for perfection. Still, that striking difference is there..Is that a bit sick? Is there still some dissatisfaction? I think there is. How to get rid of it? What to do in case you don't find the perfect half, what is the cure for the envious one? How to accept something he will never ever have and admire it in someone else? The envious doesn't even want to accept perfection, he sees his defect, his inferiority and nothing else..