If Love's A Word, That You Say...

In my previous post about Asthenia, one of the points I talked about was loving everyone. Hatred and disdain are easy emotions to feel, and it takes courage to love, especially when most other people would go about things differently (i.e. taking a negative route). The following entry is a brief introduction into love and compassion.

Someone is a lot more likely to respond positively to love and affection than hostility. This is a no brainer, but people get caught up in things and become frustrated quickly and resort to less than kind interactions. Even though someone may act negatively toward you, to respond negatively yourself will only make the initial problem worse. In stead, look past the rudeness and be the better person and act kindly toward them. This will either make them feel better and change their attitude or make them angrier (which isn’t as good in the whole scheme of things, but will make you a better person and feel better about yourself). Funny how that can work though, right? Not everyone responds well to positivity. There is a difference between being positive back and being sarcastic. Sarcasm is just as bad as negativity.

Don’t force love onto other people. Forcing people to change doesn’t help anything and can make the problem only worse. Lead by example. The best way to help people change and become happier is to love them and lead by example. If someone sees how happy you are, you’d kinda think they’d want to change things themselves. These sort of things don’t happen over night unfortunately. Patience is a virtue.

Forgive and forget. This is something I need to work on myself. There is a difference however between forgiving someone and letting someone back in your life. For example, say a friend of yours betrayed you and it really hurt. It’ll do you good in the long run if you can eventually forgive the person. Additionally, it’ll do you good to show no hostility toward the person who betrayed you, because that only creates additional negative energy that you don’t need and will only cause you more stress. However, it’s a judgment call as to whether you want to renew or continue a relationship with that person. In the past, I’ve overlooked some pretty crappy things my friends have done to me, only for them to repeat offenses. But forgiving someone is the first step to moving on. It really is. I promise.

With love, along should come empathy and compassion. To understand where someone comes from is important to understand how and why he or she acts the way they do. Granted, some people are weak and prey upon the giving hands of others, but because they are not in the majority, you should not treat everyone like they are trying to take advantage of you. This being said, it is important to have boundaries when trying to love and help people. It’s not always easy.

It’s really frustrating to see compassionless people in the world. A lot of people think only for themselves and don’t see how the world around them is affected by their actions. Compassion is an extremely important virtue, and should be practiced every day of your life. Do you really want to come off as a sociopath?

“If love’s a word,
That you say,
Say it, I will listen.”
Start The Machine, Angels & Airwaves