After writing this post, I realize that it is VERY similar to my last post. It does contain some new elements, and is somewhat different, conceptually. Since I believe that different people will respond in different ways to looking at the same thing through a different lens, I think it is worth posting.By the way, I post my ideas frequently on Facebook. With my current time constraints, it is more effective for me to frequently post short ideas there, rather than long blog entries.
Hope you enjoy this one!
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Love is the basis of life. It is the love of the parents for the newborn child that move them to care for the child. It is the love of family and friends for each other that makes them seek each other's company and to act kindly towards each other. It is the love for ourselves that makes us take care of ourselves and to seek out pleasure, enjoyment and growth for ourselves. When our concepts of love get hindered by our environment, life start to go haywire. So what hinders our concepts of love. Fear is the short answer. Fear makes us act less than lovingly. Fear of what people will think of us. Fear of scarcity. Fear of bodily harm. Fear of failure. When fear enters a situation, love gets set aside. Only the most courageous of us can act from love in the face of fear.
For example, when we fear there is not enough, we act fearfully. We horde money. We horde possessions. We overwork ourselves, because we fear that if we rest, our competition will leap past us and destroy our source of income. We step on toes, because we fear if we act lovingly, we may not have enough money to buy what we need. We see that some people who act from fear accrue power and money, and we are afraid that if we act lovingly, we will appear soft and be pushed aside in our careers or at the bargaining table. So, we learn to act from that fear, because we perceive it as rewarding. What we neglect to take account of is the resultant mental health issues created by acting from fear on a persistent basis.
When we constantly act from fear, whether or not we receive power or money, we constantly must look over our shoulders. We are under constant stress. We are constantly on the defensive, needing to control any variable we can in order to maintain our position. We may pay legislators to alter laws in our favor. We may hire guards with weapons to protect us from those who may want to harm us and/or take what we have away from us. We may even go on the offensive, to protect ourselves from a perceived threat. In more extreme states of fear-induced mental imbalance, we may maliciously sabotage others efforts, because we are afraid that they are stifling our competitive edge. We may go even further and attack others without even perceiving a threat, in order to take their power and possessions from them, and make them our own.
When we act from fear, the loving basis of life is squeezed out into a trickle, at best. We go home and we get a little dose of love from our spouses, and then we go back to work stepping on more toes, and overworking to the point that our spouses and children are left needy for our time and love. As this trickle of love is all that is left in our lives, we become almost constantly miserable, seeking short term comfort from alcohol use, drug use and watching television programs in which people gossip about and ridicule each other, making us feel better about ourselves, because our lives aren't as pathetic. We also become attention-starved and act superficially, in ways to attract the attention and praise of others, even when the behavior we exhibit goes against our true sense of self, our personal values. We will do almost anything to feel a little trickle of love from another.
Being subjected to receiving love only in trickles, we become conditioned to letting our own love out only in trickles. We are afraid to show too much love, because it is not the norm. We are afraid of seeming silly or weak. We see that people revere characters in film or television that are violent and strong, and we emulate them. We feel rejected when we show our love “too much,” and it is not reciprocated. We learn to hide our love behind walls we create between ourselves.
If we want to return life to the world – to humanity – we must learn to love fully. We must put aside our fears, and act as we truly are. We must take big risks with our love. When we do so, our lives will become more magical. When loves flows more freely, life flows more freely. Life becomes easier and more fulfilling.
In order to love this way, we will have to love ourselves immensely. We will have to learn that the rejection of our love by another is either motivated by fear, or simply because we don't resonate with that person, and that doesn't mean there is anything wrong with us. There are many varieties of people, and they don't all resonate with each other. We need not feel rejected. We are no less because this or that person does not enjoy our company, or does not agree with our ideas or beliefs. We are no less whole. And we are no less capable of loving the next one to come along.
Express your love fully. Do not be afraid. That is the truest courage that exists.
Love,
Alan
Photo borrowed from Fada Moranga on Flickr
