Everyone’s been hurt or disappointed in love. So it’s easy to decide, “Love stinks!,” offer each other sympathy, and pull in our horns. And that’s what many people do. But that gets us nowhere.
To say “Love stinks” is like opening the refrigerator and smelling something rotten. We don’t slam the door shut and say, “Refrigerators stink!” That would be silly, and unhelpful. No. We peer inside, find something that’s growing fur or turning green, and simply throw it out. Bad smell gone.
Why don’t we do the same with love? Why don’t we look at all the problems associated with love and say, “It smells bad in here. Where is that bad smell coming from?” Why do we unquestioningly accept the cruel irony that the most divine human experience in the world is booby-trapped, and we just have to accept that “fact”?
People wiser than J. Giels have looked at the situation and discovered the source of the stink: selfishness. The fact is, when there’s something really wonderful, absolutely desirable, and completely heavenly at stake, we tend to get grabby and greedy about it. We want to have its treasures and pleasures, and we want to keep them. Those desires are selfish ones, not loving ones.
Whereas love is an experience of immersive attention on another and concern for the happiness of the other, selfishness is self-focused and self-concerned. Selfishness was the culprit when the Mills Brothers sang, “You only hurt the ones you love.” When we’re motivated by selfishness instead of love, we say and do hurtful things. Not intentionally; but when we do things motivated by selfishness, we forget to consider (or strategically ignore) the possible implications on those we love — those who love us, who depend emotionally on us, whose defenses are down, whose minds and hearts are open to us, and whose natural human sensitivity (which is huge, and tender in all of us) is heightened by the experience of love. If we don’t take them into consideration when we speak and act, we can easily hurt them.
In human life, selfishness is pretty much standard operating procedure. And speaking and acting without taking others deeply into consideration is common practice. In fact, we are often jostling and bruising other people through our inconsideration. When we’re “no one special” to them, they generally ignore the pain, and simply make sure to keep a safe distance. But when love opens our hearts and heightens our sensitivity to someone, and their sensitivity to us, we can’t ignore our effects as easily. Which is a good thing — because it will hopefully motivate us to ask the truly helpful question, “Who cut one?” In other words, where is this bad smell coming from? If sincerely asking that question led us to shift the blame to selfishness — and we actually started working on being less selfish — the whole world, and all our love relationships, would be a better place.
I’ve been working on reducing my selfish tendencies for years, and I know how challenging it is to do. It’s a lot easier to just say, “Love stinks” and leave it at that. But that just helps perpetuate a lot of unnecessary pain. There’s enough inevitable pain in human life. Let’s do what we can to reduce the unnecessary pain we add to the pile! Let’s remember: Love doesn’t stink; selfishness does.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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