Introductions and the John Legend principle

By way of an introduction, I’m not really one for opening up to people. So it came as a surprise to me when I felt inspired to write a blog, but I was lucky enough to meet someone whose writing is personal but never oversharing or overbearing. I can’t promise the same quality, but I’d quite like to share some thoughts.

Recently, I learnt a very important lesson. Sadly, the most important lessons are also the most difficult ones, the ones it takes longest to accept. But, in the end, those are the lessons you have to learn for things to start getting better.  

My faith calls me to be kind, gracious and forgiving; to turn the other cheek, to let things go, to keep trying, to love others, and treat them how I wish to be treated. I am not good at it, but then neither are other people. Often it seems that those people are precisely the ones that we find ourselves making that extra effort with. I suppose in these situations it is only to be expected that at some point or another, it will all get thrown back in our face and twisted into something it was never intended to be. Yet whether we expect it or not, when it happens, it’s no less painful. Somehow, we even end up blaming ourselves, wondering whether it would have been different had we only tried harder, loved more. I doubt that it would.  

Whenever something like this happens I find myself feeling conflicted with my faith. If only there were some compromise between loving others and protecting yourself. There will always be those moments when we proclaim to whoever will listen that we won’t bother with people any more, won’t help them, won’t care about them. We might even do it for a while, but then something starts to feel wrong. Even if our efforts aren’t going to be appreciated, and we’re bound to get hurt all over again… well, that’s not the point is it?

When you love, you give, and I’ve learnt that unfortunately, you can’t control what you get in return. What you can control, is what you take out of what you’re given. You can take offense, hurt, rejection and pain, or you can take a lesson, strength, recovery and hope. Every experience teaches us how to move forward, how to grow, which ways to turn and which to avoid. After the hurt has faded, I try to take strength and peace in the knowledge that I will never be in the same position again, because I will not allow myself be treated like that again. And that doesn’t conflict with what my religion teaches; love others as you love yourself. Love yourself. It starts with you. Once you love yourself, you enable yourself to love others, and just as importantly, you enable them to love you. It's a bit like what John Legend says, give someone all of you, and they might give you all of them. Love is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of great, great strength.