Liking while Disliking
Posted on 31. Oct, 2009 by Ruda in Emotions
Photo by Procsilas
It seems an especially difficult thing to love everyone, as some people might. In my understanding of love, there would be no desire to change the thing that you love if you truly loved for what it was. So if one were to love everyone, the problem I’m about to describe wouldn’t apply. The problem is that people are so complex that it is impossible to find a person that could be deemed perfect in the eyes of anyone. There are so many different sides to a person, that even someone we deeply respected or admired might have a side to them that would be unappealing to us.
As I see it, there are initially three possible attitudes we could adopt in our view of others. We could choose to like everyone, dislike everyone, or be indifferent to them. Each of these must be applied to everyone, because choosing to like or dislike only certain people would be to suggest that there is some level of perfection, or some level of inexcusable faults. Also, if we were to choose only certain people, then everyone would choose different sets of people. Even the person we might most despise would be liked by someone. In this case we don’t approach any conclusive decision about the population because our own liking or disliking would be meaningless.
The problem I see with loving everybody is that if we really were to love everybody and accept people as they are, then we would not be right in trying to change them. This creates a conflict because everyone holds certain values to be important, if we loved everyone, we would love even the people that embodied the opposite of our values. If we are to accept everyone, then why hold our own values to be important at all? If we are accepting of everything and do not seek to change anyone, why speak of such values at all? Of course this is under the assumption I have made that loving entails unconditional acceptance. This may not be true for others’ view of love.
So I decide to choose between like, dislike, and indifference. This also became quite perplexing as I would waver between the three of these over the course of the last couple of years, depending on different experiences with people. I still feel there must be some way to resolve this inconsistency. I don’t think we can be indifferent completely because nobody is born indifferent. People are driven to indifference through negative experience, and just the fact that this experience affects us defeats the purpose of indifference. We are left with dislike and like. Every person I know has sides that I like and sides that I dislike, so it’s hard to write anyone off to completely dislike or choose anyone to completely like. My solution has become to like or dislike based on the sides within each person. This way, there is someone to like in everyone, and someone to dislike. This view also leaves room for change. I can still hold my values and desire change based on those values in the sides that I dislike. Right now, this is the best balance I can strike between complete liking, which I feel excuses too much, or complete dislike, which is too harsh.
This view is very much something I thought of recently, so I would be very interested to hear your own solutions or opinions so I can improve this idea or see the faults in it.
Hello! I suppose you couldn't resist trying to catch a glimpse of the person writing all this nonsense. If you want to learn more about me, check out the "About Me" page. Self-explanatory I guess.
Lora
Nov 3rd, 2009
I find if I can understand someone I can then push aside the dislike. I used to hate—now it just translates into pity. Hate is just too much work, and a waste of my precious time.
There is no perfection out there, not even within ourselves, it’s just a constant growth. And I’m attracted to, or like (leading to love?) those that continue to push themselves to grow.
So I certainly can’t love everybody. That’s also a waste of my time, I have too much work to do on myself, most days.
Adriane
Nov 19th, 2009
Well… there is loving and loving. What does love mean to each individual?
I think the distinction is in loving the essence of who each person is without considering their actions or personality, which are ego-driven.
Further, when our own ego interacts with our reasoning capabilities, we become judges and our heart is no longer engaged; the heart being engaged as opposed to our mind is the very thing which enables us to love unconditionally.
To love others in such a way in no way excuses or condones others’ behaviour… it simply “exists” as a sort of natural force, and because our own ego often gets in the way, is likely not sustainable as a constant state of being. As long as we are consciously aware of the separation that exists between “us” and “them” it is not possible to love wholly in the way that you describe in your first paragraph… in the way that ascended masters are able to.
There are moments when I have felt this all-openness… an interconnection with the sea of All That We Are… when my heart center feels like it’s flowing out into everyone and everything and essence of Love is flowing through my heart like a river. It’s incredible… but like all good and wonderful things the moment ends and I forget that we are like Lego pieces and let my ego back into the driver’s seat and as much as I’d like not to judge another’s behaviour, I do.
But I am aware I am doing it, and that this is not all of the story, and for a moment I can once again pull back into that state of bliss, and share it with those that are around me by projecting it outward, and hope that it uplifts all of us.
~Adriane <3