On January 28th, 2011, I came to a conclusion. After years of extensive research, observation, and reading , I decided that this concept of loving yourself will make others like you, is simply not true. I believed the theories out there. It's a great concept in an ideal world... a world where everything is purple and pink with flowers and unicorns and frolicking under rainbows. Sure , if I decide to see the world through these rainbow colored glasses, then it might make it true in my own little world. If I imagine everyone loves me, then in my head it is true.
I dont see that happening in reality though until everyone, or lets say over half of everyone, puts on the same peace, love and rainbow glasses too.
In reality, there are many people wearing poop colored glasses (I am borrowing this term from Kaseja at Heart of Now).
Believing in these theories helped me learn to love myself more, and put me on this path and its great. I have faith that the more we all concentrate on world peace, it will happen. My outlook is positive, and, realistic.
I have experimented with loving myself in order to attract loving people. Maybe, I was around the wrong people in the first place? , but my lack of social skills is what I see turning people off. No matter how loving the person isand no matter how much I love myself, if I dont do the right small talk, they move on in most cases.
On the other end, I have been in horrible moods, not liking my life and good things have happened to me.
Until we are all peaceful Buddha like people, we will be attracted to the good conversationalists, who entertain us or know how to compliment us, and not attracted to those who seem different, wrong or bad.
We all have golden hearts with pure loving intentions when you take all the other crap away.
I'm pretty that this topic has been the cause of innumerable books and several billion blog posts too... While there are almost as many ways of dealing with the issue, I'm going to just pick one. I think it's about trust, which manifests itself as confidence and acceptance. Trusting yourself -- that you're good enough and valuable enough, with or without the edification of others -- and trusting others -- that they're intrinsically kind and good though accepting them for whatever they are -- engenders trust in return. If you give silent love, you can certainly be at peace with that. But you're not likely to make many many connections.
ReplyDeleteSmall talk is not just about wasting time - it's showing that you are willing to give the time to get to know someone, to find out if you have common interests, and to see if you want to develop the connection further.
I don't think life can be completely about intensely focused and meaningfulness. It's saving the world, one jar at a time. It's about those little tidbits of your day when you found out someone else raises chickens... or has a son or daughter... or likes FOTC or booty music!
We all do have golden hearts. Small talk, trusting in ourselves, and accepting others are all part of the process of, um, cleaning away the layers of poop on our glasses...