From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Thu Sep 05 2002 - 11:25:22 MDT
Amara Graps wrote:
> There are many "acts of love":
>
> - where you earn alot or little or nothing, are funded by government
> taxes or not, are protected by a country's Constitution or not, are in
> great danger or not, lost friends or family or not.
>
> Sometimes it seems like one sacrifices alot for that "act of love",
> but if that action was one's own choice, then when one has time to
> reflect on it, the result is simply that one learned valuable things
> for one's own life, not that someone 'owes' you or should 'respect'
> you or that you should have 'special privileges' because of your own
> choice. (No matter how committed you were at the time of that
> decision.)
>
Very well said. And yet we do in part cherish people according
to the evidence of what they love and have loved and how they
invest and have invested themselves in what they love. It is
not a matter of being "owed" but their is a matter of being seen
and understood. If we get too busy wondering whether other
people appreciate what we do then we are not as effective in
service of what we love. We get too busy looking in "the rear
view mirror" of our own and other people's perception of us.
That leads to narcissim and lessened ability to fully live.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:44 MST