“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.”
— Dalai Lama
In any vision that I can conceive of of a healthy society, love and compassion are crucial. Empathy is a close third. It’s not necessarily a matter of walking a mile in each other’s shoes as being willing to understand why they undertook the walk and perhaps be willing to rub their feet afterwards. Or perhaps that is taking the metaphor a bit too far.
Far too often we willfully misunderstand each other. I know that there have been people of whom I was so sure that I would disagree that as soon as they started talking I would listen carefully until they said one phrase that I could misconstrue as wrong. It didn’t matter to me that I was taking it out of context. I just wanted to prove them wrong. Eventually a friend helped me out of that, by rubbing my face in what I was doing. I gradually became aware of how often it was happening and started working on it. I at least hope that’s getting better.
Where were we? Oh yeah, love and compassion and perhaps allowance. Allowing people to be who they are not just in an embrace diversity tolerance way but in a way that we acknowledge their choices in the same way we acknowledge our own. While we’re at it that might become easier, once we start forgiving our own mistakes and be a bit more compassionate and loving towards ourselves. Blessings, G
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Anima Awakening by G A Rosenberg