It was broad and we jumped from one thought to another. From
the past to the future, to the images that are brought by our own imagination
(or fears). But I don’t want to bore you with the long story. I want to focus
in that particular scenario I remembered the most – giving away love.
How would you feel if you have loved someone, cared for
someone, nurtured someone and sacrificed for someone yet after everything you’ve
done for that person, he didn’t give it back but gave it to someone else
instead? Would it feel good? Would it feel right? This was the situation my
friend was in.
She feared that what she sow, someone else will reap. That
what she sacrificed and gave to the person she loves, someone else might get
the benefits instead. That it is unfair. And it is unfair, is it not?
Is it not? – That was the question I had in mind. The
question I had to digest and ponder. But I felt that there was something wrong
with that question which hinders me to see the truth. I had to change or modify
it. And modify it I did. To find the
answer, ask the right question.
Why is it not unfair?
Because love is as love does. The greatest reward of giving love is not to be loved back, but for the
love to be paid forward. When I love someone and that person learns
something valuable from me, that person grows. And if that person loves someone
else and shares what she learned from me and helped someone grow because of it,
then my love has been paid forward. And paying it forward is better than paying
it back. For when we pay back we just return what has been given to us. But
when we pay forward, we multiply what we have received and help not only one
person but many.
When we teach a man how to fish, we do not only help him
feed himself for a lifetime, we also allow him to do the same for another man
and the effect multiplies. If everybody knows how to fish, then everybody will
be able to feed himself for a lifetime. That is better than teaching a man how
to fish just so he can catch a fish for you.
This is a lesson I have to keep reminding myself of. When we
sacrifice for someone, when we love someone and help someone grow, we have
already been loved back. And if that person shares what he learned from us and
helped another person grow – that is the greatest reward he can get.
Bottom-line, let us not be envious. When someone, our family
member, relatives, friends, or even enemies achieve something good, let us be
happy for them. Same with being jealous (or selfish). When the person we love
loves someone else, as long as it will make him grow, let us be happy with it.
I agree with Nat king Cole (or Ahbez, the composer) when he said
that “the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in
return”. Let me then add that in giving love, “the greatest reward we’ll ever
have is when that love is passed on to others and multiplied in return.”
