Many people are disappointed because they have so little love in their lives. I have heard one woman say that she does not believe there is any such thing as real unselfish love. She has found that what she thought was love in some of her so-called friends was only self-interest, for when she was unfortunate and was not able to pay what she owed them they turned against her.
Without knowing it, her own mental attitude, her cold distrust of others, is driving love and sympathy away from her. In a general way, we get back as much love as we give. The feelings we arouse in others, the sentiments, the emotions, the passions we excite, are good indicators of our own disposition, our own character. If we arouse suspicion, distrust, jealousy, envy–these qualities must exist to some extent in ourselves. Like attracts like. We call out of others what corresponds to our mental attitude toward them, our treatment of them.
Many people who are famishing for love, whose greatest disappointment is that their love instinct is not satisfied, make it impossible for love to burn in their hearts, because there is so little there that goes with love. A heart full of bitterness, envy, jealousy, of greed, cold selfishness, an overlapping ambition for place, fame, power, is no dwelling place for love. It would be chilled to death.
Most of us by our wrong mental attitude drive away the things we long for and struggle to attain. Every normal being longs for love, and yet how many are constantly driving it from them by their mental attitude and their unlovely ways.
A mother who all her life has been hungry for love is alienating her children by the exactions of an unfortunate temperament. She makes the home so uncomfortable by her hard, critical fault finding spirit and her disagreeable disposition that her children are never happy there. They are always glad to get away from it and from their mother. Nothing they do pleases her. She is continually finding fault with their conduct, their dress, their manners, their habits. They never get a word of praise or commendation from her, no matter how hard they strive for it. The result is that she is driving what love they have for her out of their hearts.
True love is never exacting or fault finding. It cannot be unkind or querulous. If you want to be loved you must stop barking at the bad in others and look for the good. You will always find what you look for.
Love is the golden key with which all hearts are opened. It is the magic door through which we must pass to the hearts of our fellow men as well as to the success in work and life.
– Orison Swett Marden, The Chicago Daily News, Chicago, IL., May 28, 1919
© 2009, admin. All rights reserved.
