Love, or rather the lack of it constitutes the loneliness breeding in a person’s heart. It is a scary fact to note that we are largely shaped by others (remember the sum of five people we spend most of our time with) who hold our destiny in THEIR hands.
We are what we are today – a product of those who loved us or have refused to love us.
Love gives life to others. But what is most important to remember is that in order to love someone else effectively, we must love ourselves first! You can’t give what you don’t have!
You may think you are loving a beautiful girl or a handsome guy but if you don’t love yourself then that is not love.
One may admire that person because he or she is good-looking, you may worship that person because you think he or she is better, or you may even sacrifice your life for him or her for your own selfish, self-gratifying ego, but you do not love.
Love is a verb. It is an action. The feeling of being loved is actually a product of the verb or action. By loving yourself first, it forms the basis or foundation by which you share the same feeling with others. Without which it is merely a baseless act of self-deception that appears to be loving. But how do we love ourselves if we have never been loved?
Learning How to Love
When we are lonely, we feel like we are in an unbearable prison. By its very nature loneliness is just like a stomach ache – the attention centers only on ourselves. So we try and fill this emptiness by finding others who will give us that very lovely feeling we need.
People often try to do things for others to gain their being loved feeling. They barter and trade favors with each other thinking that they are loving people. We feel like our loneliness can only be filled by others and therefore we must feel loved by others.
The paradox of love is this:
If we seek to fill the void of our own loneliness by seeking love from others, we will inevitably find no consolation but only a deeper desolation. In other words, if we only seeking for the lovely feeling that we need, we will never find it.
When a person orients his life towards the satisfaction of his own needs, when he goes out to seek the lovely feeling that he needs, he is basically self-centered, no matter how pitiful he is. As long as he focuses on himself, his ability to share this lovely feeling will always remain stunted.
What is the solution then?
If a person seeks not to wait for receiving love, but rather start to give it without strings attached, he will become lovable and he will most certainly be loved by others in the end.
We must stop being concerned with ourselves and begin to be concerned with others. Beginning with the end in mind – which focuses on the results of the act of loving others without being concerned with self-gain, is the first step to gaining lovely feelings and easing the pain of loneliness.
Every single person on earth has some capacity to love.
We all have some ability to focus our attention off ourselves and on the needs and concerns of others. It is the extent that we are willing to give, are we able to receive that amount back from others.
Deciding to love others with no strings attached is like a donation (we don’t expect anything in return, not even a satisfied ego or relieving guilt), not a barter trade. When we ask others, “What have you done for me?” we have failed to love.
Even if at the beginning you are only able to do little, you will be loved little. That very little will empower you to grow and produce more love and in return receive greater love from others. But always remember that in making this self-donation or self-sacrifice, our minds must always be focused away from ourselves or it wouldn’t work.
Thus start working on the action rather than the feeling. Becasue LOVE is a verb not just a feeling…
