The Greatest Choice

Loving our enemies

I came to a major realization once that led me to make a very huge personal choice. I realized that as long as I had so much as one single solitary “enemy” then I could not love myself. One cannot love oneself one iota more than how much one loves one’s worst enemy.

For me, it was a very profound realization. I wanted to choose life and to choose to love myself. I desperately wanted to love myself. But I realized that in order to love myself I had to love all other people. I realized there is no way around that.

Most people never come to that realization and most that do don’t come to it until they are on their deathbed. Not until then do they realize how utterly futile their antagonism was. Not until then do they realize how much negative energy they put out. Not until then do they realize that every person they ever met in their lives was a reflection of what is inside them and every one of those people was a supreme gift and opportunity to express love. Not until then do they want to make things right with everyone but by then it is often much too late.

I decided not to put it off until my deathbed. I wanted to make it right, right now. I chose not to have any enemies no matter what. I found out how difficult that was but over time it has become a little easier.

I chose to live my life in love. If there is ever an instance where it is difficult to love someone then that is a reflection that there is some resistance within me to loving myself. I acknowledge that and search within me for that resistance in order to dissolve it. But I’ve also realized that dissolving it is also accomplished on the outside by loving the one who presented the difficulty. Turning away from that person or fighting them guarantees that the resistance within cannot be healed. Our so-called enemies are actually our greatest teachers and healers. Always. The more we fight them, the more we fight ourselves. We cannot love our selves and we cannot heal our selves if we are fighting our selves or anyone else.

To know how much we are fighting our selves we merely need to look out and see how much we are fighting with others. It’s the perfect mirror. The best way to start loving ourselves is to start loving all other humans. I can testify that this really does work. I can also testify that it is not easy and that it takes time. The change is gradual yet profound but the change does not begin until a choice is made. That choice must be made with every fiber of one’s being. It’s the single greatest choice we can make. We must choose to love ourself.

And we cannot do that unless we also choose to love all others.

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This piece was originally published on Medium in October, 2017.

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