Two Paths

There are two paths, the path that leads to love, peace and acceptance and the path that leads away. Most of us pray for, plead for and weep for love in our lives, while our actions, our words, and the behavior we accept from others with open arms is anything but loving. We justify, support and back unloving behavior in actions of upholding what is negative and we do it in the name of love. Our actions and our words are miles apart.

If we know what love is, surely we also know what love is not, or do we?

Every human being seeks an environment where they can safely express their feelings, their thoughts, their dreams and their talents, where they can safely be who and what they are, but it is an exceptional human being who will extend the same privilege to others that he desires for himself. Every human being wants to be treated with dignity and respect, yet few are willing to give it. Every human being wants to be appreciated, cared about and loved, but it seems that those who need it the most, drive it away by trying to force it, demand it, control it, smother it and there by unwittingly destroy it in a pathetic and desperate desire to own it, they cause the very thing they feared most.

Imagine a wild and exotic bird peacefully and trustfully choosing to sit upon your hand. Imagine closing your grip, capturing the bird and caging it. From that moment on the freedom, the trust and the zest for life start to diminish in the bird. You are gradually destroying the bird; its desire for life and its beauty begin to die. In your desire to possess it, you are destroying it. This is symbolic of what we do to each other in our relation ships.

How did we get so dysfunctional? When did we come to believe we were so unique to humanity that our feelings and needs were somehow separate, greater and superior than the needs of others?
If we are accepting of assuming we deserve no equality, then when did we come to believe that our needs were somehow inferior, insignificant or less important than the needs of others?

Every human heart aspires to have their physical, emotional and intellectual needs met. When someone sets themselves up as being entitled to these basic needs and there by assuming someone else is not entitled to these same basic human needs, we have the root, the cause and the dysfunction of abuse.

To act, insinuate or say that another person is not entitled to have the fulfillment of the same needs you have, believing that you have a right to have your needs met, but they don’t, automatically creates a division, distance and pulling away between you. Your command of superior authority may create silence, but it won’t create unity. It may create obedience but it won’t stop the desire to get out of your control. It may create submission, but submission it self feels like oppression when the person you force into submission is made to feel they are some how less entitled to the fulfillment of their needs than you are.

If you want respect, inspire it .Inspire the best of qualities, the variety of qualities, and the enrichment of seeing life, learning life and advancing knowledge through differing points of view.

Someone once said,” If two people are exactly alike, one of them is unnecessary.” The French say, “Viva la difference.” Love the difference. It takes a secure person to accept the growth and expansion differences bring. Being secure is not something one can command, it is something one must be. If you dare to be the best of which you can be and help others to be the same, you have found the path to love.