Love

It would appear that Sunday was a day to learn about love...again.

It all started on Sunday morning with the statement from P. Mills - "Love trumps all". I know it's such a simple statement, probably made thousands of times before, but the clarity and truth of it rang clearer to me than ever before. Love does trump all, and all that we need to learn from life is how to love people wholly and unselfishly. You may think the Beatles were exaggerating when they said "All you need is love", but in reality, it is true. Love is the fundamental core of life. If we could all learn to love a bit more, love someone other than ourselves, we would change the course of the world. I truly believe that with all my heart.

So, Sunday morning began with a much needed reminder of love, and Sunday night followed with another gentle reminder of how our love should be activated in our lives. And here are some characteristics of true love--

Generous. Marked as sacrifice.
Active. Backed up by actions.
Sincere. Open-hearted, doesn't use people.
Sensitive. Tactful; knows what to say and when.
United. Works to take down walls.
Edifying. Seeks to build others up.

See, none of us can say with surety that the love we demonstrate in our lives is characterized by those attributes. In fact, I would hazard a guess that many of us do not even understand what true love is.

There are people who don't understand true love because they have another definition of it.
There are people who don't understand true love because they have never experienced it.
There are people who don't understand true love because they have denied it's existence.
There are people who don't understand true love because they have never understood it.

There will always be people who won't believe, who won't understand, who'll deny the truth.

The fact is, we all need love, we all need it in it's purest form.
We need to give it, and need to allow ourselves to receive it.

Here's what I did.
I lay on my bed, the wind blowing in through my wide-open window, the curtains tossing and dancing in the wind, sunshine dappling the walls and bed.
I lay there and thought about life, and how wonderful it can be.
It's such a juxtaposition between good and bad, but the bad times make me love the beautiful and good moments that much more.

Basically, my thoughts on love (and life) can be summed up as so--
I need to start searching, probing, being honest with the love I choose to give and allow myself to receive.
Is my love growing people, am I sacrificing myself for others? Do I value other people as much as I value myself?
Never, never be content with where you are. Strive, reach, strain, stretch to be more. Build your character, grow yourself, open your heart, believe.

"He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world."

About Life.

In general.

There's so much stuff about it that is so confusing, and it seems that it may never resolve itself.

It would appear that violins and cellos almost always sound mournful, and grieve in their beauty.

Also, Valentine's Day for the single may be the most difficult holiday to celebrate alone. Mainly because society throws these ideas at us, that say being single during this time means there's something wrong with you, something that needs to be remedied.

And most importantly, there are people, there are situations that need remedying, which are far more important than any chocolate-covered holiday, but we lose sight of that, lose our perspective, are ultimately lost in ourselves, when we worry and obsess over things we feel we should have that we don't, people we feel we should be when we aren't.

It's actually ridiculous that we weight so much of ourselves around standards that other people have created, standards that are completely inaccurate and that can break us because we feel we will never reach them.

A young girl will start out her life feeling that she'll never be good-looking enough, because she can't meet the standards that are required from so many young girls at this time.

A young boy will believe that he is under-average, that he isn't a real man, when he sees pictures and forms a concept on what a real man looks like,

It's a general waste of time and energy trying to be someone that you aren't, trying to evolve into a fictional idea of what people should be like.

I realize of course, that I have completely rambled my way through this entire post.

Intro To Leaving

It is a hard thing for parents to see their children grow up, change, become adults.
It is hard for them to see their children form different mindsets, have different opinions, be different people.
But the number one most important thing for a parent to do, and I am convinced wholeheartedly of this, is to embrace their children and love them unconditionally. Yeah, they will make mistakes, yeah things will get rough, but to show love through it all is more powerful and moving than anything you can do.

That being said, I am more and more sure of this...independence is something that cannot be avoided, and should be done as gracefully as possible. Leaving on good terms is important, and being able to look back and not feel any guilt or dissatisfaction is key.

It's all very vague and generally sounding, but that's all for now.