Saturday, April 17, 2010

Love Your Enemies

I usually don't discuss religion here, but I just wanted to discuss the concept of loving your enemies.

Going through a rough break up and being the person that was left behind or abandoned is the worst feeling I've ever experienced so far in my life. It left me emotionally scarred and battered. The day after and the following days ahead had me covering my emotions. I had to shield what I am going through from everyone at work and friends. Some days it felt like I couldn't go on and I would just take a day of leave from work or work from home whenever it was applicable. I stopped caring about things I used to do like playing videogames or just enjoying a movie. The whole situation was always on my mind.

I tried different approaches to stop dreaming about her by sleeping really late so that my body is not rested enough and couldn't dream. This doesn't work. As a result, I now sleep late and wake up really tired for work or wake up late. My lead was right. People who undergo these situations get into a cycle of bad habits even though they stopped dealing with their situations long ago. The habit stays.

Another approach I found to dealing with this is to stop thinking about the great times I had with her and replace it with the bad qualities she has that I really don't like. These just caused me to be angry. Like in the Star Wars mantra, anger leads to hate. Hating seemed to work. Turning all that love to hate seemed to be the key at some point. But all this effort of hating is just making me suffer. You can hate all you want, but all the effort drains you and you end up suffering while the other person is enjoying their life living. I read that the person who broke up the relationship will have a much easier time dealing with this than the person who was dumped. I also know this guy (the person who blocked me on Facebook for some reason). He always talks bad about other people and whenever he talks he just has nothing good to say about other people. If it is something good, it's only to benefit him and not to praise that person. This person has a lot of anger and hate inside of him. I don't want to be that guy.

One approach I've been neglecting to do is through religion. I know religion is not perfect, but strip away the righteous indignation and condemnations of the fundamentalists and fanatics, there truly are messages about life and how to deal with certain situations. My friend was in a Bible study group recently and she talked about the subject they were discussing which is loving your enemies. Loving your enemy is easier said than done. What I got from this is that hating will only make you suffer. You don't have to love the person you hate that quickly. I don't think you have to love that person. What you do is turn what is negative and turn it into something positive.

Instead of hating, do something else spending your time developing or improving on a hobby. With the absence of my guitar, which broke 3 months ago, I've been going downstairs to play on our piano in the family room. I really need to practice some more. Another thing is to help other people who needs help. This has to be the most gratifying thing you can do for others. Recently, I made a post about being a Yes Man for Sunday. The week before this friend from college asked for help on his Intro to Java class. I barely know this guy and I helped him because I had no good reason not to. In the end, I refreshed my Java programming skills and helped him in return. He invited me to a BBQ for Sunday. Another friend needed help for his Data Structures class for Java. I agreed to help him as well and we worked on his project. We didn't finish, but I hope he completed it before the deadline. After the coding session, we ate dinner and met some really nice people. I've never done anything like this before and I wouldn't have done this if I didn't help him. Because of helping other people, I was able to turn a sad situation (myself) into an enlightening experience.

But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Luke 6:27-31. NIV

When they say loving your enemies, what I got from this is one of the 10 commandments: love thy neighbors as thyself. Loving your enemy is a tall order and hard to do. Love is a place holder for the positive things you can do to others. So you can give a little bit of your love to others.

I've still very far from being a devout religious person. I'm not sure I will ever be. But this, I approve. I managed to get all this by myself. I can only imagine how much I would learn if I attended those study groups.

I'm done.

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