Love is like finding a beautiful painting that gives you happiness everytime you see it. Whenever you gaze at it, you know that there is no other like it, and you feel blessed because you were able to find it. However costly it may be, you’d buy that painting, for there is no price for the joy it gives your heart.  You would gladly exchange everything you have just to possess that painting, for possessing it means also possessing the happiness that has always eluded you.

But what if after buying it, you find out that you could no longer afford to maintain it?  Or that someone else is interested in the same painting, someone who hates the artist and wants to destroy the painting at all costs?  What would you do if you knew someone who could protect the painting, but letting him protect it would also mean letting go of the one thing that has brought you so much joy?  Will you let go of the painting so you could save it somehow?

Though it would surely break your heart, you would let it go and give it to the one who can protect it.  You would sacrifice your own happiness just to know that the most important thing you’ve found, whose beauty is beyond equal, would be preserved somehow, and kept away from harm.

And so you would grieve your loss.  You would grieve for the long days ahead of you without being able to see the one thing that has given you so much joy.

One day however, you will discover a great secret. That if you have truly loved the painting with all your heart, and with all your soul, you can recall its beauty wherever you are, however far away you may be from the masterpiece that you have lost.  In truth you will realize, that you haven’t really lost the treasure that you have found, for it has been kept safely where no thief could ever take it away from you.  You’d find out that its beauty and its joy have already been embedded deeply within your heart.

Where Is Your Guilt Coming From?

What I have in common with the character in 'Truman' is this incredible need to please people. I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. - Jim Carrey

Where Is Your Guilt Coming From?

Whenever we feel that certain remorse for doing something bad, we’re either measuring our behavior based on our own standards, or we’re allowing other people’s standards to question our own beliefs on what is right and what is wrong.

Though we do have to be firm with our own standards of goodness, the perspective of other people on the matter do provide us with periodic checks that help us validate our own moral code.  Have we been overlooking something which other people see?  What are some of the blind spots we need to address in our own conscience?

Without guilt, this world would be a more dangerous place to be, filled with people with no remorse whatsoever for all the harmful things they’ve done, unaffected even by the pleas of other people who got hurt and damaged along the way.  Just think of the psychopaths who can get away with mass murder without flinching a bit.  It’s frightening to even imagine such a world where conscience and guilt do not exist.

Hard though it may be to accept, remember that guilt is sometimes a friendly internal voice reminding you that you're messing up. - Marge Kennedy

We do mess up a lot of times, and we should be thankful for that internal voice guiding us so we could appropriately correct the wrong that we have done.

Setting Appropriate Boundaries

There are times however, when other people could use this same feeling of guilt in order to manipulate us, maybe not consciously, but in one way or the other, we’re influenced to an extent that is no longer healthy for us.

This is especially true for people who have great empathy for others, those who could feel other people’s pain as though it were their own.

When they say no to other people’s expectations, they feel that they have let those people down, and they feel guilty.

As a result, they’d rather sacrifice their own good just to avoid letting other people down.  They take on more responsibilities, they sacrifice their time, they spend all their energy until they get drained and feel exhausted.

What they fail to realize is that by hurting themselves, they also risk hurting other people in the long run!  Sooner or later, they’d feel so drained they’d have nothing left to give anymore.  What’s worse is when they get tempted to play the blame-game, blaming other people for making them do things they never wanted to do in the first place.

Let us be humble enough to acknowledge our own limitations and let us give other people the opportunity to be responsbile for themselves.  If we continue to do more than is necessary for other people, we may actually be hindering their growth and their ability to take care of their own selves.

True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. R. D. Laing

While it may be true that we don’t want to let other people down, we can’t always be responsible for their own way of thinking.  They may think we’re refusing them something we have the capacity of giving them.  They may think we don’t care.  But only we could truly know how much we really care and how much we could give without sacrificing our own good.

Our Need For Approval

If we find it so difficult to set the necessary boundaries between our own and other people’s expectations of us, we may try to ask ourselves why we’re finding it so hard to do so.  Is it because in truth, we are relying on other people’s approval in order to validate our own self-esteem?  Whenever we’re not able to please other people, do we feel rejected as well?  Do we feel worthless?

If we become dependent upon other people’s approval in order to validate our own self worth, then even our own moral standards may become prejudiced in the end.  Why?  Because such standards will no longer be based on an impartial and independent set of measures we have set for our own lives.

Our guilt, in order to be a useful signal for our morality, should be based on a clear and firm foundation of values we truly believe in, not a mixed feeling triggered by our fear of rejection and our need for other people’s approval.  The next time you feel guilty, try to ask yourself, where is this guilt really coming from?

I'm not doing my philanthropic work, out of any kind of guilt, or any need to create good public relations. I'm doing it because I can afford to do it, and I believe in it. - George Soros

Why Is It So Hard To Be Perfect?

My child, you are broken. Unless you know that you are broken yourself, it will be severely laborious to love the broken people around you. You will be harsh and exacting towards them. But because you want others to like you, you will always attempt to hide your weaknesses from others. Let me strip away your masks, so that you may know who you really are. And when this truth sets you free, then shall you be free to genuinely love. Before this occurs, your love will be offered by the flask, not by the torrents of a river. -BoSanchez, Embraced

How does it feel like trying to be perfect all the time?

How does it feel like trying to always be the one person who understands, who cares about others, who gives and gives and yet receives nothing in return?

I’ll tell you how it feels like.  It’s tiring!  There are times when you feel as though you can’t even breathe anymore.  You can’t relax because you know you’re not allowed to make any mistake.  You feel afraid because once you do make one, you don’t know if you can still be forgiven and understood.

And it just feels so unfair.  Why are so many people being forgiven and loved after committing so many mistakes in their lives?  Why can’t I be loved like that?  Why can’t people be patient with me, too?

Trying to be perfect is like trying to do the impossible, and since we can’t accomplish it, we’re bound to be frustrated in the end.  We feel the rejection of other people because we first rejected ourselves.  After a while, we also begin rejecting other people because they can’t live up to the strict standards we have set for everyone.

Will God Reject Me Too?

God wants us to be perfect someday, but He knows the limits of our humanity at the moment, and that is why He has provided us MERCY.

If we could all attain perfection on our own, Jesus need not have been crucified for us.  But He knew we needed GRACE, and He decided to MEET us, not at our point of perfection, but at our point of pain.

There are times when the words I LOVE YOU seem to pale in comparison with the words I FORGIVE YOU.  Why?  Because there are times when the words I LOVE YOU could only stand for as long as you’re good enough, but the words I FORGIVE YOU have already dealt with your darkest sins and still finds the strength to look you in the eye and accept you as you are.

Love and Perfection

Love does not say,
“I am now PERFECT,
you can now LOVE me,”
for such makes love conditional
upon one’s perfection,
and makes the beloved proud and arrogant
instead of being full of gratitude.
Such a love evokes fear
for it is a love that can easily be lost
upon the slightest mistake
and upon the smallest sign
that the beloved is not worthy of one’s love.
Let those who yearn to know
what true love really is behold -
“I am wretched
but You have lifted me up and LOVED me.

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Jesus also told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else.

Once there were two men who went up to the Temple to pray: one was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all my income.

But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said,  God, have pity on me, a sinner!  I tell you, said Jesus, the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home. For those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.

-Luke 18:9-14