Strength

Disclaimer-I first wrote this a couple weeks ago as a note on facebook. i feel it's appropriate to add it to my personal journal (aka blog).

People always talk about being "strong".... And whenever they say that it's always followed by "so i gotta do it on my own" or "i just gotta get over it".... and that's never made sense to me.

Why do people think its being "strong" to be alone?? To truly share your life with someone, to let them explore the deepest darkest places of your soul, to open up everything you are to them is so much harder. Becoming vulnerable is so much harder. To keep on fighting, to keep on trying and trying even though you know it's going to hurt every single time. That's real strength.

Don't believe me? look at children, when they get hurt what they do?? they curl up in a ball or they retaliate. They do anything to stop the pain. That's weak, its animal. It takes true strength to overcome your initial instincts to run or revenge. it takes true strength to let someone in on your real feelings, to explore your soul and understand YOURSELF... to look in the mirror and KNOW EXACTLY who your are. to be able to list off your weaknesses without shame. to know your potential and strive for it. to understand what your good at and to not boast. and especially to forgive, to realize the pain others have caused and accept it. Not to move on from it, but to work through it, to understand them, and possibly you might end up understanding yourself.

After this came to me I started thinking about the motivation for helping others. Why do we help some and not others? and what occurred to me was the selfish way we see everything as a debt. "ill pay you back." or "I don't OWE you anything."...how terribly destructive this becomes. everyone knows the saying "eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind". but lets consider the reverse, if we only help those who helped us then our parents would have shaken us to death as children, for we started out crying and pooping on and wrecking everything they had, they didn't owe us anything... that's weakness, its saying you are only capable of good if its an obligation, like a job... In a perfect world no one would think they owed anyone anything and everyone would help and love out of the goodness of their heart... but this is not a perfect world. The honest get swindled and the caring get used.

Yet.....the honest people getting swindled and the caring people getting used, they're doing it right... They are living life how we meant to... with pure love. They don't help their friends expecting reward or because of obligation. its SIMPLY love.
Someone once said (i dunno who) "Don't simplify what's complicated, and don't complicate what's simple."

I used to think that to deal with the world we needed to understand the complications, to figure out the system, the pattern, the hard shit. but now i know its not. To live by the simplest of rules is the only way life works out for everyone. and that one little rule is to SIMPLY LOVE

Love what you do everyday. Who you talk to. What you do to others, just always have love as goal number 1.

You WILL get shit on, its going to hurt more then anything ever before. You will always be vulnerable. Yet that's what being strong is about, picking up whats left after someone sucker punches you in the face and still loving them, still loving the next stranger even though they could punch you just like that other person.