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Today's
quotation:
Life
is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt
others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred.
In fact, the opposite
occurs:
When we hate people who hurt us, we come to resemble what we hate,
or worse, and then we suffer all the more.
What is evil is our response. We have choices, and love is the most powerful eliminator of all.
Bernie Siegel
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Today's
Meditation:
It's so easy
to respond to negative things in our lives with so many
responses other than love. This is especially true
when someone does something to us that isn't at all
loving, and even hateful or downright mean. We often
want to respond in kind, to make the other person feel as
bad as we do-- but the hard truth is that when we do look
to respond in kind, we're not responding in a loving way
at all.
If we
respond to hate with hate, then we've become
hateful. If we respond to anger with anger, then
guess what? We've become people who allow anger to
control us. And we don't want that. I know
that when I respond to anything in anger or hatred, I make
serious mistakes and I do and say things that I regret
later. The only response that I want to have-- and
I'm not very good at making this actually happen-- is the
loving response because I know that we're here on the
planet to love one another, not to hate one another or be
angry with one another.
The
simple truth is that we make no situations better when we
respond with anything but love and compassion. We
may satisfy our temptation to "get back" at the
other person, but that doesn't mean that we've done any
good at all. Instead, we've more than likely made
matters worse by adding to the negative energy of the
entire situation.
I
hope that someday I learn to respond to everything with
love and compassion. I don't know that I'll
accomplish this goal before I leave this planet, but I
hope that working towards it will do me and others a great
deal of good. After all, if I know that anger and
hatred do nothing but add negative energy to the world,
then I must avoid those at all costs. Here's hoping
that I'm able to do so.
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