Yesterday was Valentine's Day. If the Class of 2025's carnation sale didn't do me in, I'm still thinking along with many of you about love. My first name means love, so I've spent a lot of my life believing in the importance and strength of love. Today's post helps explain where my contemplations have led me.
Look at the photo of Tuukka above. Gaze into his eyes. I can't imagine how anyone could see that face and not love Tuukka. You should know that he tracks mud through the house and has accidents on the rug (instead of on the floor, where the mess would be easier to clean up) and knocks over/breaks irreplaceable things and chews up necessary items and sheds more than any vacuum can accommodate and you can add whatever else might be annoying to this list. And still, we love him. In fact, there's nothing he could ever do that would make us not love him because our love is unconditional.
Many of us feel this way about our pets and our children, spouses, parents, besties. We love them no matter what they do, even when the slights and inconveniences seem deliberate and pointed. At the same time, when we're confronted with people we don't already have warm feelings towards, we blame them for everything. We hold their actions against them in some kind of cosmic tally sheet, accounting the grudges we hold in one column and the benefits of the relationship in the other.
There are two main problems with emotional-accounting and grudge-carrying.
First, it's the person feeling the animosity who experiences its burden. My anger or sadness or other bad feelings don't have any effect on the person I think caused them. In fact, the only person who causes and controls my feelings is me. I get to frame my internal reactions to external events.
Second, holding onto ill feelings about someone else's actions also fails to acknowledge our own fallibility. I'm willing to bet (not money, and not against anyone currently under the legal age for gambling) that we've all made ourselves into someone else's proverbial puke on the carpet. We're willing to see the errors of some through a lens of unconditional love because we know that they're doing the best they can with the information and skills they have. As are we. And we, too, deserve to be seen through a charitable lens.
As the loving kindness meditation teaches us, we can extend our goodwill to ourselves and those we love just as we can to those we don't know and even those whose words and actions we don't like/agree with. When we embrace the idea that we can truly love everyone unconditionally, we release the burdens of holding grudges and open ourselves to forgiveness and understanding. Doesn't that sound worthy of Valentine's Day and the rest of the year?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Raises the question of meaning(s) of “love.”
Too tough a question for the morning, but can recommend
Mlton Mayeroff’s “On Caring.”
Amazon says 1990, must be a reprint, since I read in 1972.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll put it on my (very long) to-check-out list.
I agree that vitamin L is good for the body, mind, and “spirit”. Feeding a grudge detracts from that well being. Trying to understand is more rewarding than blaming.
Absolutely! (and it’s harder, too, but we can do hard things)
I’m still working on this part: “we know that they’re doing the best they can with the information and skills they have.” Working hard.
Me to, sistah!
What Viveca said.
A smart approach — I’ve been trying to heed what Viveca said for 53.5 years.