Life is simple, very simple indeed. But we humans take great pride in making it complicated. I think it is because we get our sense of worth by doing something tough, solving some complex problem or achieving some goal. So the idea of life being simple is very difficult to grasp for most of us.
Like life, the solutions or secrets behind solving most of our problems are also very simple. In this article I want to point out three very simple secrets for love. When I say love, I mean love between any two human beings, and not necessarily romantic love. It could also be love between two strangers, but the secrets are the same. Also they are nothing which you don’t already know or something which I have ‘discovered‘, they are plain old undeniable truths which we all are aware of, but rarely practice in our lives.
Here they go –
1. Delight at Sight
We all must ask ourselves a few questions here –
- How excited are we on seeing our parents after coming home from work?
- How happy are we on seeing our colleagues daily at work?
- How joyful we become on meeting our friends over the weekend?
- Do we smile and wish our neighbors when we crash into them every now and then?
Delight at sight means a feeling of absolute delight on seeing another human being. The delight of knowing that we have parents to care for us, friends to share a beer with, a spouse to share our life, and colleagues to work along with. Do we smile, run towards them, and wish or hug them with a big smile on our face?
We all know a few such people in our lives, and if we look deeply we will know that how much love they give and receive. If you have no human examples, look at your dog or cat and observe their behaviour. Can you see the “Delight at Sight” secret in them?
2. Marshal People By Example
Giving a lecture is so much easy than acting ourselves on what we are lecturing about. Just like writing this article is a lot more easy for me than to actually practice this stuff daily. But love spreads from sacrifice and compassion towards another, by teaching something by example. By doing something ourselves, and making ourselves a 10x better example of what we are trying to suggest/teach to the other person is the only way to sow the seeds of love in any relationship.
I can see my father as a perfect example of this. And I am sure we all can see the same in our parents. And it is a very hard process, as you have to continue practice living your life as an example, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and so on. And if we want to preach a principle, we have to live our lives at least a 10 time multiple of that principle. It takes a BIG man to do that…
3. Heart to Heart
We should aspire to live more from our heart than from our brain. We should tap into the emotions and feelings which make us human (but not be driven by them) because the strongest human connections and love always originate from our hearts, and never from our brains. We should show an endless stream of compassion towards our fellow beings as each one of us is fighting very similar battles. Support people instead of criticizing, forgive them instead of holding a grudge and love them instead of judging them.
However, this is not something we should (or can) fake. Heart to Heart means being true to our feelings and never lying about how one feels. If you are sad – cry, if you are angry – shout; but get over it soon and pour out compassion for yourself and for others too. Do what you want to do, and give others space to do what they want to do.