Its easy to hate, but hard to love

Now I might run the risk of sounding like a guru, but this is what I got to experience recently and this was nothing less than a spiritual experience. It all started when my dear brother handed me this treasure which was lying at his home underutilized. It was a Stephen Covey quietly sitting on a shelf at his home. It was like this charismatic speaker who taught the world the right way to live was never allowed to speak there. Yes, I was handed the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". I will soon coax him into reading this book himself too, but that's another day.

So, this book opposes the cosmetic way of personality development that many books talk about. Covey professes that you cannot "influence people and make friends" without genuinely liking them. You will need to a drastic change internally in order to be able to change your personality externally. Its sort of a soul cleaning exercise that is necessary in order to achieve any kind of success. Otherwise, you may still achieve success but at the cost of others' happiness.

Getting back to the subject of this blog, now that I am reading some doctrines prescribed in the book and getting to practice them as suggested by Covey, I am increasingly able to love everyone around me. Its a pristine, unadulterated, unconditional love that doesn't expect anything in return. And the more I love, the more I realize how hard it is to love someone.

Hating is easy. Its easy to say "this guy is a bad manager. All he cares about is his own success." But it's hard to put yourself into his shoes and understand what pressure he undergoes and why he passes on some of it to his underlings. Its easy to say "my spouse doesn't love me anymore." Its hard to unconditionally give your best to her and make yourself likable to him or her. Its easy to put your ego first and get offended by a seemingly innocent remark. But its hard to take it sportively and understand the point. Its easy to blame the government for apathy. But its hard to be a good citizen and make a difference.

As humans, we take the path of least resistance and tend to hate. But whenever I feel the urge to do that, I direct myself to take the hard path instead. And once I take the path of love, only then I realize the blissful after-effects that come as a bonus. Mind will be filled with positive energy, which makes you tireless even after a hard day. Negative energy brings nothing but stress and exhaustion.

To end the blog post, let me quote from Star Wars - "May the (positive) force be with you..."