Now, let’s look to the horizon. Learning how to accept and appreciate yourself, that’s a call-to-action. Learning how to love yourself and others, now that is a life-long mission.
For this noble goal, “The Art of Loving” by Erich Fromm is an excellent read. I’ve read it for the third time, and it continues to inspire me. In the book, Fromm highlights at the very beginning, that to love is “a rare achievement” and the reader’s attempts are “bound to fail”. He points out how we often misunderstand the problem of love as that of ‘being loved’, it is actually that of ‘loving’.
Love is an activity. Loving is giving.
I love how Fromm describes: “Giving is the highest expression of potency“. Potency. Nice!
So if loving is an art, then it involves the mastery of both theory and practice. Fromm outlines how love includes: care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
To care means an active concern for one’s growth. To be responsible means to be able and ready to respond. To respect someone means to have the ability to see a person as he or she is. When you care, when you are able to respond to and respect someone, you will then be motivated to know them and seek true understanding. Yes, love includes all of that. Nobody said it was gonna be easy.
Now, the practice of love requires discipline, concentration and patience.
You need to overcome your narcissism. Use reason. Remain objective. Be humble and fair. Have faith and courage. It is a decision, a commitment and a promise.
“If I want to learn the art of loving, I must strive for objectivity in every situation, and become sensitive to the situations where I am not objective. I must try to see the difference between my picture of a person and his behaviour, as it is narcissistically distorted and the person’s reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears.” – Erich Fromm
Meanwhile in FINLAND... 