Last week I talked about Self-Love and how I believe it is so important to give yourself a break and show yourself some compassion. This week I want to spread the love a bit further.
It was hard to hide away from the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan, everyone was talking about it. In particular, the Bishop Curry, who made a big impression with his fourteen minute sermon, which was supposed to have been only six minutes. He talked a lot about love and how he believed that love could cure the world. The sermon was passionate and moving and very different to anything anyone had heard at a royal wedding before.
Love Can Cure The World.
There is certainly not enough love in this world. Just think for a moment, if we replaced all hatred with love what a different world it would be. There would be no violence, no war, no segregation, no fighting. There would be a better distribution of wealth and a more democratic society. There would be less illness and more compassion to those who were sick.
There would be more happiness, and every human desires happiness, it is our life goal.
There are some that would disagree, those that say that anger and hatred is a part of human nature that we cannot ignore.
Tenzin Gyatso; The Fourteenth Dalai Lama speaks wonderfully about compassion and the individual. If you have the time it’s well worth a read. In the meantime here is a small snippet.
Some of my friends have told me that, while love and compassion are marvellous and good, they are not really very relevant. Our world, they say, is not a place where such beliefs have much influence or power. They claim that anger and hatred are so much a part of human nature that humanity will always be dominated by them. I do not agree.
We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred-thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are news, compassionate activities are so much part of daily life that they are taken for granted and, therefore, largely ignored.
This In compassionate World
I could list a million ways in which this world lacks compassion but I’d like to focus a little on Social Media and the Internet. I think we have a platform in which we can show so much compassion and love but instead, so many decide to attack instead.
We get people who are determined to make others feel worse or miserable, or even just pick an argument.
We get people who take every comment as an attack on how they are feeling.
The Internet can be a miserable place, so many people have the wrong kind of attitude.
To break it down into a few categories (I know there are more.) We have, those that complain about personal issues all the time, we have those who paint their lives as perfect and rosy and would never admit they had just had a blazing row with their partner and we have those who are determined to just tell it how it is.
It’s a personal decision how much you disclose about your personal life to those online. If you want to keep stuff back, that’s fine, if you want to tell all, that’s okay too. What’s not okay is if someone takes what you say and uses it to attack you. Doing this makes both parties unhappy. Even if the person being unkind thinks it makes them happy, it really doesn’t. In the long run it will only bring them misery because no-one wants to be friends with someone like that and we all desire the friendship of others even when we think we don’t.
A little compassion goes a long way. Deep down we all know that showing kindness makes you feel better and the other person will feel better too.
Love is Strong.
These days we have lost the belief that love is strong. We see it as weak, we see compassion as weak. But it’s not, it’s strong.
In a world where people are hell bound on not giving a f**k we think that love will just bring us down.
I’m all for getting rid of the rubbish in your life, cutting out the stuff that makes you miserable. And of course there is only so much you can care about isn’t there?
Compassion is not all about giving in, or allowing other’s to control you. Love is strong, it will make you feel better, it will give you a better life. You don’t have to care about everything, but if you start to practice compassion regularly it won’t matter, you will find yourself caring without stress. Hating is much harder work than loving and much more draining.
What do you think?
Would you be prepared to show a little love to someone today.
Bishop Curry was fantastic. I’ve never seen or heard of him before but he really did have a point. He might have taken his time but he was brilliant and so inspiring.
You are right. Showing hatred is much harder work than loving….
This is so important in this day and age. We have lost a great deal of compassion. #lgrtstumble
Sadly compassion is an ever decreasing emotion in this modern capitalist world.
Gone are the days when neighbours looked out for each other. Popped in to have a cuppa with an elderly widow or widower to check they were OK and help ease the loneliness.
We are so wrapped up in working to earn money for the latest gadget that huge multi national brands tell us we must have.
It saddens me, as when you watch small children at play they are full of compassion, as they grow and become more influenced by society and media they become less compassionte.
#LGRTstumble
Alan, maybe it is OUR duty to ensure our children grow up with more compassion? I know many won’t be if I can make three compassionate adults out of my three youngest, then I’ll consider it a good job x
Wise words and show true. It is nice to be nice X #LGRTstumble
It is sad to think of our world being deprived of love. You see what’s happening in the news and wonder what is the world coming to! I’m sure we all want to live in a world where there’s more love. #MMBC
Lovely piece, the point is to keep treading that path and lead by example, I’m feeling quite positive about things at the moment (in my little part of this universe) so I’m trying to see the positive in every day. One piece of advice. Never watch the news. #blogcrush
I love your point about love being strong, even though it’s sometimes ridiculed as being weak. I have often been treated as weak because I have a very sensitive nature (not in the sense that I take offence easily, but sensitive in that I pick up on other’s feelings really strongly and often take those feelings upon myself). Actually, if we all paid more attention to the feelings of others and treated them as we would wish to be treated, the world would be a much better place, as you say. #blogcrush
Great post. I think social media can be a wonderful place but it also brings out the worst in people. I tend to live my life in my own little bubble with nice people and things in it but sometimes I hate it when I experience a bit of modern society. It’s not hard to be decent is it?