I am pretty scared to share what is on my mind right know but i think i need to so here goes. I truly believe that my mission/ goal in life is to love people. There is a man who lives across the street he is a crack dealer. How do I love him? When I see him I see a man who has never been loved, I see a man who wants more for his son than he had, I see someone who uses violence to gain acceptance, Some one who needs love. My first instinct is to help him, teach him how to be or act, and help him become the person he would like to be. But I know that if i gave him everything he wanted he would abuse it. He would take advantage of my love. And I would be left broken and battered and hurt. So how do we love people who can't love us? Love your enemy's, that is hard but i think for me loving the people who are neutrals is so much harder. Loving the angry clerk, customer, driver, neighbour, friend even. How do we love them. In saying all this I know in my life I have let my self be walked over. All in the name of love. Not only with men but with roommates, bosses, whatever. I am starting to realize in my life that i deserve better than 'whatever i can get'. But how do I really love those people in my life? and love my self.
I have two thoughts:
Space. Realizing that i cannot save anyone from anything giving that person room to grow, room to be, room to mess up. I think of one friend who I love dearly. She often lets herself get used by men. I want to just fix her, I want to make it all better. I have realized though trial and error that the best thing i can do is just be there. listen and care. At first i used to make sure that she would never hang out with boys and lecture her when she messed up. This only pushed her away.
The other thing I have thought of is just taking a step back. I always see the potential for more in people. I need to learn where people are at, and how to be okay with that. As easy or as simple as that sounds it is a big hard pill to swallow.
Now in no way am i saying that we should not push ourselves to love people who are hard to love cause i think that we need a lot more of that. What i am saying is, there needs to be a balance for us to survive between love for others and love for ourselves.
