Where We Care
There are many people in our lives who are a major blessing for us. There are an equal number of people who make us angry and seem to hinder our progress. Everyone is a teacher in which we can learn a lesson – even if we don’t enjoy the lesson or the person we’re learning from. Our progress is only hindered when we refuse to see the opportunity within adversity.
When we care about others and how they affect us, it’s best to love without any strings attached. Simply loving for the sake of loving is a gift and unique experience within itself. If we decide that others need to behave a certain way towards us because we’re investing our energy in them, then we set ourselves up for failure. When we impose our expectations on others, and get upset when they don’t follow suit, then we get angry and feel neglected.
While we can’t get upset about how others react to us, we must be careful not to invest ourselves into those who want to simply use us. Love is unconditional, but it also can’t be taken advantage of. In a sense, it’s a bit of a paradox in how it needs to be a two-way street, but without expectation. It’s a mutual connection of respect, but without keeping a score.
Where we put our importance of care affects our state of wellbeing. Caring too much about opinions, accomplishments, and validation can leave us drained. The only opinion we need to care about is God’s opinion. This saves us a lot of guesswork and heartache. Additionally, it’s important to love others without investing our worth in the process. Once we let others take our value, we are at the whim of experiencing frustrations and disappointment from misplaced expectations.
It’s easier said than done. We all make mistakes and we aren’t going to reach perfection in this lifetime. It’s important to remember forgiveness and acceptance for ourselves when we actually fall short. It’s honorable to strive forward in doing the right thing, but it can kill our spirit if perfection is the goal. Life naturally gets better when we do the right thing – but it can’t be a consistently met end-goal in itself. The more we practice, the easier it gets – but we simply need to remember to love ourselves when we fall short of perfection.
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