“What do you suppose everyone on the planet wants? I am not sure but if I had to guess here are a few things they might wish they had; love; acceptance; happiness; power; health; wealth; well-being; family; home; productive work; free time; enjoyment… I’m sure the list of wants is endless.

What do you suppose the highest want might be? I would suspect love; happiness; acceptance. Perhaps, I am not correct, or perhaps there are others but it seems to me most people want to have some purpose in life. They want to feel connected and valuable. They want to relate and enjoy life to the fullest. They want to share it with people who are important to them. They want to give and receive.

Some people are happy with or without a house, a car, a TV, or many of our basic ‘necessities’. Many can get along without things. Some may get by without a job or work, but fewer get by without other people to live life with. We all find at least one other to share with. Homeless people congregate because we are social creatures. Even in the fiercest competition we find acts of generosity and kindness, of love and acceptance.

Frankly, I think everything anyone does is a request for love. It may not be voiced or even consciously recognized by each of us but I do think that everyone wants it and no one wants to live life without it.

It seems to me, if this is the case, that we might seek to be more loving as well as loved. Love is a nebulous concept. It is a generalization of thought and our language. So is the notion ‘everyone wants love’. This may be true, but I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what love means?

People love their family, friends, their job, their car, their pets, their homes, hamburgers, jewelry; people love many things. We still aren’t sure what they mean by love because it means many things to many people. So, I say seek not love. Don’t ask for love or have a goal to love or be loved.

Instead, seek to be loving. Seek to have people treat you in loving ways.

 

Love is not quantifiable or definable in a working definition way, but loving can be. You can ACTUALLY tell when someone is acting towards you in a loving way, or towards another AND when they are not. You can say, ‘yes, that is it! That’s what I mean.’ ‘By their fruits, ye shall know them’, is a phrase we ought to remember and live by. Loving acts are recognizable!

When someone truly loves another, their thoughts and their feelings and their behaviors are loving. You can tell when they perform loving behaviors and when the behaviors they perform are not loving.

People can mistreat another and say, ‘but I love you! I did it because I love you’ but that’ not acting in loving ways. ‘Love’ can be used to justify a host of un-loving behaviors.

So, don’t strive to love. Strive to be more loving. Strive to be more kind, nicer and to act in ways that benefit the person whom you ‘love’. When you think and behave as I’m describing, it allows you and the other to teach one another how to be more loving. A person can say, ‘when you do that I feel loved’, ‘or ‘I really enjoy it when you do this’. ‘I feel appreciated, special, loved, accepted when…’ It can open up the lines of reciprocal communication to help people draw closer.

There’s another aspect to this I want to mention before I close. Since most people seek ‘love’, ‘acceptance’ and ‘happiness,’ perhaps we can be more loving, accepting and joyful. Perhaps, we can become more cheerful givers and help others in times of need.

If you want to feel better, and feel better about yourself, help another person when they have needs. Some people need loving treatment. Some need career assistance. Some need help picking up socks around the house. Some need food, water and shelter. Some need to feel valued when they have no work and are down on their luck.

You can do any little thing in loving ways and be of great benefit to another person, family member, friend or stranger.

Hate and intolerance seems to have risen in the US. A vocal group blames and wants to cut people off from assistance because they feel some people are freeloaders. While there may be some freeloaders, that may just be a fact of life, I doubt there are very many people who want something for nothing. Most people want love and acceptance and happiness than the haters imply. Most people want to feel and be productive. They want to provide. This vocal group screams that there’s a culture of freeloader ‘entitlement’ that needs to be stopped.

If you want to stop this you don’t do it with whips and chains and taking food from their babies. You do it through loving. You do it from understanding and accepting. You help others with helpful behaviors. If you want someone to be more productive lift the person up. Don’t insult them and push them further down.

The Golden Rule, which the more I come to understand it, IS the most incredible Rule we could ever hope to have. It is a rule of GO FIRST. Go first in thought and in deed. Hold the other person in the highest esteem and the highest regard. When you expect the best of people they tend to rise to the level of what’s expected of them. Give first of your thoughts, your feelings, your energy, your time, your resources AND while helping others you actually help yourself.

It’s more than the simple notion of karma and what goes around comes around. Or, you better watch out because YOU will get back what you put out.

While this might be the case, it’r really more a question of ‘what do you want to create?’

What kind of world do you want to have? Do your want it filled with more hating or more loving? If you want the latter then you and I need to begin right there by being more loving in all we do with everyone we are around.

It begins with you and me. It doesn’t begin with the other person. Being loving doesn’t include keeping score, having a one up or one down power mentality. Loving means doing things that are loving and accepting of others; family, friends and strangers. It also includes being more loving and accepting of ourselves.

If each of us did nothing more than actually practiced the Golden Rule wholeheartedly, not only would our own lives transform in absolutely positive and  incredible ways but then so would our world.

Some will say, ‘well that’s all fine and well but not everyone will do it’ and I say. ‘SO WHAT?’ Transformation doesn’t begin over there. It begins right here. In our own hearts and minds and being. Be less concerned with what others do and absolutely concerned with what you do! Take responsibility for yourself and your actions. Don’t evangelically try to make others conform.

Live lovingly. Treat others in loving ways and watch your world positively evolve! Treat yourself in loving ways and everything will transform. Don’t try to change others or require them to be anything other than completely who they are, good or bad. Instead go first! Be loving and accepting. Lift them up and they will get up.

If you can help someone in their time of need, if you can support someone in their pursuits, their goals and passions, if you can be there in loving ways with a kind word or deed, you are helping to make the world a better place. So pay it forward and enjoy how beautiful your life and all of life becomes!” Rex Sikes

Today, live, love, laugh and celebrate! Celebrate everything!

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