The Precious Gift



Once upon a time, when God had finished making the world, he wanted to leave behind a piece of His own divinity, a spark of His essence, a promise to man of what he could become, with effort. He looked for a place to hide this precious gift because, He explained, what man could find too easily would never be valued by him.

"Then you must hide this gift on the highest mountain peak on earth," said one of his counselors.

God shook His head, "No, for man is an adventuresome creature and he will soon enough learn to climb the highest mountain peaks."

"Hide it then, O Great One, in the depths of the earth."

"I think not," said God, "for man will one day discover that he can dig into the deepest parts of the earth."

"In the middle of the ocean then, Master?"

God shook His head. "I've given man a brain, you see, and one day he'll learn to build ships and cross the mightiest oceans."

"Where then, Master?" cried His counselors.

God smiled, "I'll hide it where every man and woman will be able to find it if they look sincerely and deeply enough. I'll hide it in their heart."

Author Unknown

I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

1 Corinthians 7:7

The Seven Powers for Self Control

 

Lesson 5:  The Power of Love

See the best in each other.

The Beatles sang "All You Need is Love."  Thomas Carlyle said, “A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.”  Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “All men, even the most surly are influenced by affection.”

When you Google quotations about love you get 173,000,000 hits.  It seems that everyone has something to say about love.  The kind of love we’re talking about here is the kind of love you have for yourself, first, and then the love you have for those around you.  It may be your spouse, it may be your children, maybe it’s your co-workers or your teammates.  All of these people require you to love yourself, so that you can love them. 

Why would it be necessary to love yourself before you can love anybody else?  Well, it’s really simple.  If you can’t love yourself, care about yourself, how can you know how to love and care for anyone else?  It’s impossible.  Love comes from within you.  It is a respect you have for yourself, because you know that you are valuable and worthy of it.  If you don’t have this knowledge, then you can attempt to love others, but it will be a selfish kind of love, more about you than it is about them.  You will fail in loving others when you have no internal foundation upon which to build their love.

We have to find a way to see the best in ourselves.  This means, as in Lesson 4, that we have to take a look at ourselves and determine what there is to love.  We all have good things and bad things about us.  There will be those things that you are really proud of.  You ‘love’ those things about yourself.  Make a list and post it somewhere.  The truth is we all spend more time dwelling on those things we don’t like, than the ones we do.  Certainly, we need to address those negative things and work to make them things that are now positive, but there are those things, even if it’s a very short list, that we at least ‘like’ about ourselves a little bit.  Remember, what you focus on you get more of (Lesson3) so focus on the good stuff and you’ll get more. 

Faith makes all things possible.  Love makes them easy.  No one knows who said this but it is true.  When you love yourself, it becomes a simple task to love those around you and when you love those around you, you are able to see the best in each other.  This isn’t something that just happens, however.  It is a commitment to look for the good.  As we’ve talked about in the other four lessons, it is always easy to focus on the bad things, especially in others.  It is easy to decide that they are the ones who need to change.  Finding others’ faults is relatively simple.  Finding the best in each other could take some practice.

I had a student in public school, fourth grade, who was a perfectionist.  If he didn’t get one-hundred percent on his papers he was determined that he had failed.  It was a problem we worked on for quite a while before he had a total melt-down one day over a math paper.  It was the first homework assignment on long division and he had missed just one.  Because he had done so well, I wrote a great big GOOD at the top of his paper with my signature smiley face embedded in it.  As I handed out the papers the next day, he brought his paper to me with tears in his eyes to ask me why I would put this mark on his paper when it, obviously, was not ‘good.’  I tried in every way I knew how to help him see that missing one problem, on something so new to him, to all of them, was a very good thing, but he absolutely refused to see it.  He had missed one, therefore it was bad.

When I talked with his parents about my concerns over his perfectionism, they shared their concerns as well, but as we talked it became apparent that his father also shared this perfectionistic tendency.  In fact, his first question to the boy was why he had missed that one and gotten all the others correct.  It was not a question intended to teach.  It was a question intended to belittle; “If you could get all the others right, why not this one?”  I learned very quickly that there were lessons here for the father as well as the son, and if I couldn’t help the father, I probably wouldn’t be able to help the boy either.  I have no doubt that the father never came right out and told the boy that his work must be perfect, but he said it in so many other ways  that the boy had very clearly heard and taken to heart. 

As with most of my students, I don’t know what happened with this one.  I hope that there was some easing of his burden after he left my room for the next grade.  I’m certain that he was very successful in whatever field he chose.  I hope that it was his choice, whatever it was, and I hope that he is happy with the work that he does.  As for the father, I doubt that I made much difference in his thinking.  He may have been a little less quick to voice his ‘concerns’ at least in front of me, but I am certain that he still holds the highest expectations for himself and his children. 

Expectations are not a bad thing.   In fact, I have been quoted as saying,  “Children will live up or down to our expectations.”  If we set them too high, then they become unattainable as with this young man and his father; no one is perfect.  If we set them too low, then we tell them that we don’t believe they are capable of anything too difficult and they learn to not even try.  It is a fine line that we walk in setting our expectations reasonably, knowing the abilities of our children, or our spouse, or our co-workers, and then expecting that they will live up to what we believe them to be capable. 

I have also had parents who were so afraid of letting their children fail that they ‘helped’ them with each and every assignment.  You know their work when it comes in, obviously not that of a ten year old, alone.  My son always complained at the Pinewood Derby  in Cub Scouts because we helped him with his car when it came to using the power tools but the rest of the work was all his.  Inevitably, on race day, a lot of the other boys would come with their cars that had obviously had a lot more ‘help’ than our son’s.  It was always a great day, when his car defeated some of those other cars.  We had told him that we believed him to be capable and he was.  We expected to see the best in him, and we did.

It comes down, as always, to choices.  We will see what we choose to see.  We will find what we choose to find.  Choose to see the best in each other, but choose to see the best in yourself first!

Loving Yourself First

Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.Lucille Ball

Lucille Ball was a very smart woman.  She created a television empire, along with her husband, Desi Arnaz.  She provided us with love and laughter that instills pleasure in us, even today, all these years after her death.  I Love Lucy, the television show, was never supposed to happen, you know.

I think most of us know the story but, just in case, let me tell you.  Lucy and Desi had an idea-a way for them to work together instead of him travelling around the country with his orchestra and her doing movies.  They wanted to do a television show.  A show in which they played a married couple, him from Cuba, her from a little town in New York.  The network liked the idea of Lucy in a television show but they didn't want Desi to play the husband.  The idea of a mixed race couple on television at that time was unheard of.  It would never work, or so they thought.  Lucy refused to do the show without Desi so the network eventually agreed and history was made.  Even after their divorce, Lucy and Desi worked together at Desilu studios until she bought out his half of the business and  she then ran the company all by herself for years producing shows like the Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible.  That was all Lucy!

Pretty incredible, huh?  Imagine how it all might have been different if Lucy hadn't believed in herself, hadn't loved herself.  Everything happened because she knew that she was capable and worthy of love...from her husband, from her co-workers, from her family, from her fans, and from herself.  All the success that they had, you never heard of Lucy being disrespectful to anyone.  You never heard about her being a prima dona.  She didn't have to be.  She was Lucy and she knew she was loved, first by herself and then by the world.

I've heard Lucy and Desi's kids (also Lucy and Desi, Jr) talk about how success had eventually become too much for their parents.  It all happened very quickly.  They were famous.  Everyone loved Lucy and Desi and it became too much for them.  Desi drank to excess; in fact, he credited his son for helping him eventually get sober.  Two people, the same success but entirely different outcomes.  Don't get me wrong, Desi didn't become a skid row bum or anything.  Success was just harder for him to handle.  You know, he was actually the first to try performing in front of a live audience for television and the method of using multiple cameras came from him.  He was an innovator in the television business.

So why the difference?  Desi didn't love himself until much later in life.  I heard him give an interview once (yes, I'm really showing my age here) in which he stated that it wasn't until he was "middle-aged" and quit drinking that he accepted who he was and was able to love himself.  Unfortunately, he's not alone.  Too many people have never learned just how wonderful they are.  They've never understood that they are God's unique creation--there is no one else in the universe exactly like them.  Think about that for a minute.  You have been created to be you, just as you are.  There are no flaws or failures.  Those are only in other's eyes (and who are they to judge)?  Each of us has our own unique talents and gifts.  We may not be beautiful, but we can sing.  We may not be able to sing, but we can bake the best pies ever.  We each have our own talents and we are intended to love ourselves just as we are, talents and all.

If you watch little children, they really love themselves.  It's the world that teaches them that they are different, that they are unworthy.  Parents, siblings, other children--somebody planted the idea in their head that they weren't quite good enough and that seed took root and grew.  For some, there was someone who pulled that weed out and showed them just how beautiful they were.  For others, no one ever tried or at least not successfully, to pull that weed and love them.  They've lived with it for years and years and now; it's firmly embedded in their psyche.  It will come out, but it's going to take a LOT of hard work and someone to help pull.  For Desi, it was his son. 

Now, imagine you are a child of someone who hasn't learned to love himself.  Children follow their examples.  They will listen to your words, but they will remember what you do.  It will be impossible for them to learn to love themselves, for them to have successful relationships, if their example hasn't yet been able to do it.  Desi, Jr. is an example of this.  Desi, Jr. had his own drinking problem.  The difference for Desi, Jr.?  A mother who did love herself.  It was an example he could follow.  At some point he made a choice:  to follow his father's example (which he had been) or to follow his mother's example.  He became sober and has remained so ever since. 

What if he'd not had the mother he had?  It could have had an entirely different outcome.  Desi, Jr. never judged his father.  He didn't need to; his father was judging himself to be unworthy and unlovable.  Even with all the success he had in his life, even with a wife who loved him, even with two wonderful children, he deemed himself unlovable. 

Where are you in the process of loving yourself?  Take a moment today to appreciate your uniqueness and find a reason, find several reasons, to love yourself.  As Lucy said, "Love yourself first and everything else falls into line."  If things are falling into line, maybe you need to go back to the beginning and start over.  It's a do-over; it's allowed.  Start over and love yourself.  Not in a haughty, "I'm better than everyone else" way but in a way that says, "I know me and I love me just as I am.  I may not be perfect, but I don't have to be.  That's what makes me, me." 

Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror.

Byron Katie