Most of the time we don't truly understand our motives anymore than we understand our emotions. Why do we continue to participate in the lives of those around us? We assume it is natural when those around us are pleasant and like-minded, we believe it nurtures and replenishes us as well as them. But what about those that trouble us, who bring discourse and stress?
When the person is a positive experience we seek and embrace the positive, we don't feel the need to define it. When the person is not positive we stop. When we see others continue to associate with the less than positive person we critique and analyze, we have concern for them, their continued exposure. We assume that the relationship can only be damaging to them. When everyone else steps away from them and points to the toxicity of that relationship, why are they still there?
The question we should ask is why aren't we?
Why do we look at the less positive person and label them toxic. less than positive, stressful? Is the only way we can see a relationship as nurturing and capable of replenishing us to seek to surround ourselves in a world of rainbows and lollipops? Can we truly nourish and replenish ourselves by always taking the easier path?
When we choose the easier path and just look for the good in the positive people we keep around us are we really accomplishing anything? We accomplish little when all we look for is the bad in the less positive people and cut them off.
When someone else chooses the harder path, looking for the good in the less positive person why do we seek to criticize and rationalize their choice as bad? Is it because they chose to look for the good in a person we call 'toxic'?
Hence, we tend to now push them away, or keep them at a distance, to protect us from that toxicity. A move that could very well distance us from a truly positive person, who by example can nourish and replenish us the most.
We question their decision to help the toxic, we doubt the rationale of their motives and emotions and label them naive or foolish. Questioning them is missing the point. They are easily understood... they are simple people of compassion who do what they do out of love and self-fulfillment.
It is our motives and emotions that we should be questioning. In our world of rainbows and lollipops we are not being nourished or replenished by those 'positive' people around us. We are being stagnated. Our emotions are unchallenged. Our motives are not thought provoking. Our positive friends are a safe distraction. But we can't truly know contentment if we have no concept of disappointment, that is naïve and foolish.
Instead of looking for just the good in the good, and the bad in the bad, and weakness in the compassionate... lets try looking for the the good in everyone and the grace in the compassionate.
Sometimes to get to the green meadow in the sunshine we have to push through the dark forest..
............................Glenn Littrell
Put A Little Love In Your Heart
Think of your fellow man
Lend him a helping hand
You see it's getting late
Oh, please don't hesitate
Another day goes by
Still the children cry
If you want the world to know
We won't let hatred grow
Take a good look around
And if you're looking down
I hope when you decide
Kindness will be your guide
And the world will be a better place
All the world will be a better place
For you and me
You just wait and see
Put a little love in your heart
No comments:
Post a Comment