A friend of mine said "just pick someone and love them "to me the other day and I've been meditating and acting on it and found it pretty profound. I realized that it's what I've been doing with all my friends lately and it's improved all of my relationships. We spend a lot of time looking for a perfect person. The thing I've been discovering lately though is that the people in your life are already pretty amazing. If you go out of your way to love and respect them,to REALLY listen and encourage them,you start to see the perfection in people you may have previously written off. It's a game changer. So go out, ask that coworker/acquaintance/neighbor who's pretty OK but not exciting out to do something. Really listen and attempt to connect with them. Try to appreciate them for themselves without making judgements and I promise it'll pay off in spades.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Interesting post. It occurs to me there are those looking for others to dislike before they even know anything and they like to "stick to that" also, because to do otherwise would mean admitting a mistake or cause some kind of butthurt introspection. So there are 2 sides to that approach.
Qualia
Level 8
Jan 28, 2018
0
??? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.
@Blindbird That on the other side of the "choose who you love" there are those who are prone to deciding quickly they don't like someone and are going to continue that path.
I appreciate the concept.Bringing this to fruition has been very difficult for me. Like so many of the unenlightened, I can't suppress my reactions to an excess of nonsense.
Stephen Batchelor (Confession of a Buddhist Atheist ) writes that nirvana is the cessation of reactivity. Clearly a step above my current station.
WaltCarnahan
Level 4
Jan 24, 2018
2
Yeah...no.
I did that, for many years, without giving it too much thought--just open to contact anyone's authentic self. Appreciative of people just as they are. Unselfconsciously available.
What it got me was a lot of admirers of a certain kind and a lot of haters of the other kind. No thanks. Crawling back into my hole in 3... 2... 1...
stinkeye_a
Level 8
Jan 23, 2018
1
I am truly sorry to hear that you got hurt. I'll take your experience as a valuable warning.
@Blindbird it's totally situational...mileage will definitely vary. Generally I would recommend your technique--it just so happens that in my case a perfect storm of factors led to some unhappy outcomes. Doesn't devalue the approach, just qualifies it.
@stinkeye_a and that is valuable.
So much wisdom for such a little girl. Thank you for sharing that. I have tried to share the same concept before but you did it so much better that my feeble attempts. You go girl.
TommyMeador
Level 7
Jan 23, 2018
1
Sometimes You've got to fuck up really badly so you can see what you shouldn't be doing anymore. Nothing's over till you're dead. Keep trying????
I have had my share of fucking up really bad. It was the kind of wisdom that you voiced in your post that saved me. My efforts to share such wisdom may be feeble but I will never quit. I've been at it for 50 years.
Sorry, but I ain't buyin' that. If it's working - fly free, but my hedged bets...
MadHadderoll
Level 5
Jan 23, 2018
1
Oh I'm not saying just pick anyone, I have found that the more effort I make to judge less and appreciate more the happier everyone is. People respond in the most amazing ways to being genuinely loved for themselves.
@Blindbird just no. I tried the long version of this. And it was shit. If you mean false friends, fine. But no, I absolutely need the privilege to mock, dehumanize, emotionally torture, devalue, and harass every person around me, as the only true form of affection. There is no way, I'd accept a person as a 'true friend' without that.
@Blindbird Judgement is so biological, it is literally an aphrodisiac.
@MadHadderoll yikes
@SACatWalker there's not.
Positive actions produce positive results.
sassygirl3869
Level 9
Jan 23, 2018
1
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