A lot of personal growth work demands a penetrating look at ourselves, our value, our approaches and behaviors — especially towards others. We want so much from others, and want it fast, without too much effort. We ask : Aren’t we entitled to be well treated by others?
Often people claim they don’t have enough love in their lives. Or it may not be enough friends or wealth, attention, recognition or compassion. It can be whatever is that we crave, and are sad and disappointed, even aggrieved and angry, at the lack of whatever in our lives.
Like any problem, there is often a solution. But not always a solution that one would like to hear! And in a more spiritual than psychological sense, the lack of what we feel and notice “out there” can be the manifestation of a lack in us.
Poets are often doctors of the soul. Take these lines novelist poet D.H. Lawrence wrote: “Those that go searching for love only make manifest their lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it.”
Place whatever it is you feel you lack in the sentence, and see what you learn. For example “she is not kind enough, he should be less harsh”…. and so on.
The task is simple. But be warned that the simple is not always easy. You need to first help others to have what you want for yourself. And there is no time line guarantee.
Does it always work? Perhaps not, most often because of how we go about it. But it works often enough to make it worth doing.
We live in a society and environment that more and more focus on our entitlement. And we extend this to feel automatically entitled to love, respect, attention, understanding.
I saw people in the workplace struggling hard to be recognized, praised and acknowledged. And they work harder, and harder. All very well, but then, these same people extend almost none of this genuine and discerning recognition, genuine and discerning praise, genuine and discerning acknowlegment towards the others they work with.
But what’s with all the geniune and discerning? Well, it’s possible to use this learning as a kind of quick-fix, somewhat twisted for mula: “I’ll be generous; he’ll be generous soon enough……
What!!! He isn’t generous yet? Aaaaaaaarrrgh — he wasn’t as generous as I expected him to be!” We can use a now entrenched sense of entitlement and transaction mindset even in applying this lesson. “Hell, I listened to her stupid problems, but she won’t listen to mine!”.
Discerning? Maybe that is what the holy teachings in all traditions hope will do when they all teach about “Doing unto others…..”, or even in the words attributed to Confuctus that mean much the same, “Don’t do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you.”
The challenge for true humanness resides in being a reflection of what you’d like to see in others, so offer to others what you want for yourself. If you want honesty, extend honesty and check the tendency to claim you are honest always – honesty like any other virtue has many dimensions. In the same vein, if you are lonely and friendless, be welcoming and extend yourself to others.
If you want appreciation, appreicate others. If you want to be shown understanding and compassion, be understanding and compassionate to those around you. And of course, if you want love, be more loving
Above article is taken from my own blog :
https://sangusamuel.wordpress.com/2017/07/page/2/