-Willy Loman, Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
I've always been fascinated by this line, because the analogy is at once so deeply striking and more so because I could relate to it on a personal level.
This feeling always gets me from time to time: the feeling of being squeezed dry till the very last drop of my everything is milked. Rather melodramatic, I know. But the feeling is a familiar one.
I love being around people, I love helping them, I love loving them. One of the greatest joys of my life is knowing that I brought a smile to someone's face. And oftentimes, I am content just knowing that I cheered someone up or made them laugh.
But once in a while, the feeling of resentment, irritability, and moodiness creep in to take a hold on me. As vain as it sounds, I'd like to feel as though I'm being appreciated for my efforts, or that someone else would take the trouble to be concerned about me or to tickle my funny bone or have a decent chat with me, to really see what's going on with me.
But once in a while, the feeling of resentment, irritability, and moodiness creep in to take a hold on me. As vain as it sounds, I'd like to feel as though I'm being appreciated for my efforts, or that someone else would take the trouble to be concerned about me or to tickle my funny bone or have a decent chat with me, to really see what's going on with me.
And while it's never really wrong to want others to treat you with care and consideration, it becomes a huge issue when you expect others to do so. Like there must be a quid pro quo of sorts. I was nice to you, and now I earn the right to expect you to do the same. And it's especially dangerous to expect people to be nice to me the exact same way I have done for others.
But it doesn't work that way at all. For the latter part, people have different ways of being nice, of showing gratitude, of loving others. And to expect them to love you the way you love them would only lead to self-inflicted and quite unnecessary heartache.
To expect others to be nice to you just because you were to them, would only result in such terrible, terrible bitterness.
And that's why it's so so so important to remind ourselves of WHY we love in the first place.
"We love because He first loved us." - 1 John 4:19
Only when we are nourished, replenished, resting in God's radiant, eternal love that we are ever able to love others. Our love for others is a spring of rushing water in which His love is the source. And when we cut ourselves off from the source, the spring is blocked and thus runs dry.
And that's when I realize that as much as I love to love, and I love to give of myself to others, it is absolutely vital that I remember to take a step back and bask in the glorious spring. I need to be able to enjoy His love, to take time out to be by myself, to be resting in Him, before I could start loving others. Lest we run dry, trying to create a spring of water without the source of it.
But it doesn't work that way at all. For the latter part, people have different ways of being nice, of showing gratitude, of loving others. And to expect them to love you the way you love them would only lead to self-inflicted and quite unnecessary heartache.
To expect others to be nice to you just because you were to them, would only result in such terrible, terrible bitterness.
And that's why it's so so so important to remind ourselves of WHY we love in the first place.
"We love because He first loved us." - 1 John 4:19
Only when we are nourished, replenished, resting in God's radiant, eternal love that we are ever able to love others. Our love for others is a spring of rushing water in which His love is the source. And when we cut ourselves off from the source, the spring is blocked and thus runs dry.
And that's when I realize that as much as I love to love, and I love to give of myself to others, it is absolutely vital that I remember to take a step back and bask in the glorious spring. I need to be able to enjoy His love, to take time out to be by myself, to be resting in Him, before I could start loving others. Lest we run dry, trying to create a spring of water without the source of it.
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