"Choices aren't what wewe think. They're fickle, dangerous things. Slippery, unpredictable. Tenacious. The big ones just don't go away. wewe make them once, but they keep coming back, demanding to be re-made again and again, insisting that wewe own them."

'Rosie: Note To Self', Claire Connor with G.P. Taylor


I'm going to be direct here: it KILLED me that Elena chose Stefan in the finale. I think a lot of mashabiki expected her to make the right choice, but she didn't. She made the wrong one.
I would never do Elena the dishonour kwa arguing that she didn't upendo Stefan. We all know she does. She loved him all the way through his ripper phase this season, and she alisema she loved him in that excruciating phone-call to Damon too. So she loves Stefan, I believe her. The issue is not: 'Which brother do I love?' because she zaidi au less alisema she loves them both to Matt. The issue, and the problem at the moyo of her choice is that she made it based on select components, which she believes overrides her upendo for Damon, IN SPITE of her upendo for Damon being arguably zaidi intense than her upendo for Stefan.

Elena's choice is complicated kwa the knowledge that Stefan saved her life, and that afterwards, being with him apparently taught her how to live again at a time when she felt lost. When Matt asks if she feels like she 'owes' him, she denies it. But I wonder...

"After the accident, I kind of felt like I didn't know how to live anymore. Like I didn't want to. But then being with Stefan...somehow I figured it out. And that's what upendo should be. wewe should upendo the person that makes wewe glad that you're alive."

Where is the passion in this speech? Does it sound like a girl who's madly in love? Notice that towards the end of her speech, something strange happens, and Elena refers to herself in the third person. It's not "I", it's "You". She doesn't say "I upendo Stefan because he makes me glad to be alive," au "When I'm with him I feel alive". She says "You SHOULD..." almost as if she is trying to convince herself that it's the right thing to do. She can't admit it because she doesn't think that's what she's doing, but Elena's basically saying that she loves Stefan because he made her feel alive at a time when she felt dead. In her mind, this makes total sense, but her logic is very warped to me.

Here's the thing: upendo isn't about a orodha of what wewe 'should' do. If wewe think wewe 'should' do something, the chances are that wewe won't feel like it doing it. Elena is still very young, and she doesn't yet know what upendo is. She has no mother au aunt to shed some light on the situation she's in, and any advice Caroline gives her will be hopelessly in favour of Stefan. People don't seem to know what upendo is; their perception of it can vary wildly according to what they believe au it can be very flawed. The truth is, if you've never been deeply in love, then wewe can't know how it feels au what its like. "You don't understand," Karen tells Derek in 'Smash', "because wewe don't understand love." Elena has this idea of what upendo is, she thinks she knows what it should be, but the truth is, she just doesn't understand what upendo really is.

Although Elena can be forgiven for believing that she should upendo Stefan because he got her back on her feet and made her feel "alive", she is mistaken in thinking that's what upendo is.
Elena says that when she's with Damon it just "consumes" her, and Stelena shippers will undoubtedly pounce on this and immediately denounce her feelings as unhealthy au wrong, and something that is not real upendo at all. "Real upendo is not a "consuming love". It is a love that makes wewe feel alive, makes wewe glad that you´re alive. That is the greatest thing wewe can feel..." one such person wrote.
I think they're misguided in their thinking, because "real love" IS consuming, au it can be. Some of the greatest upendo stories ever told are about a upendo that "consumes" the characters. The most famous upendo songs in the world weren't written because the song-writer loved somebody who made them happy to be alive, but because they loved someone so much, it hurt.

Loving someone who makes wewe glad to be alive isn't necessarily what makes a relationship "great", nor is it the greatest thing wewe can feel. It might be a part of it, but if upendo doesn't take over you, if it's not so intense that it would make wewe want to go to the ends of the earth for someone, au drives wewe to distraction, au fills your every waking moment, au has the power to destroy you, then...maybe wewe have a problem. Maybe it's not what wewe think it is and it's not the greatest upendo it could be.
When I was 19 and in my sekunde mwaka at university, I met a guy and fell head over heels crazy in upendo with him. Did he make me feel alive? Yes, but zaidi importantly, I was utterly consumed kwa him. I couldn't think of anything but him, which was a big problem because I was supposed to be studying for my exams. But it was a feeling I couldn't control. Elena talks herself into choosing Stefan kwa rationalising that she has to let one of them go because she can't upendo them both. Being consumed kwa what she feels for Damon naturally makes her feel alive too, to the point where it overwhelms and frightens her, but because she didn't fall in upendo with him when she had Lost her way, then her loyalty to him isn't as strong as the loyalty she feels towards Stefan. So Elena's choice isn't ultimately about love; it's about who she feels most loyal to at this moment in time. Notice that at no time in her phone-call to Damon does she utter the words "I'll always upendo Stefan." She says "I can't think about always, all I can think about is right now," suggesting perhaps that her choice comes with a time limit, an expiration date. Sure, it's what she wants for now. But what will her choice look like in the months ahead? Elena thinks she's chosen, but in reality she hasn't. Her choice will come back to haunt her, and demand to be re-made until she makes the right one - not the choice she thinks she SHOULD make, but the one she really wants, deep inside.
"You want a upendo that consumes you," Damon tells her in the flashback. "You want passion, and adventure and even a little danger." As long as Elena clings to Stefan, she will never have what her moyo truly desires.