Where is the love?

I have said many times in my life that for most people the goal in life is to love and be loved. Although I remember a conversation I had with a friend about ten years ago when he told me that his goal was to experience everything that he could experience. Therefore, experiences are the one true goal of people because we will only do things to serve ourselves (if we come from the perspective that we are self-centered). Experiences, then, have to be our goal for this one reason alone: we will only do what we truly WANT to do. If you are fat, you will stay fat until you decide to change it. You will be poor until you decide to make money. Your lot in life will remain the same until you decide to change it.

To some extent this may be true, but in the overall scheme of the whole picture I disagree. I believe that there are forces out there that can bind people to a problem to which there is no escape. Unless of course there is someone who can come to the rescue that has more knowledge, strength or resources to free the person from that which has them in submission against their will.

Love.

It’s the one key ingredient that initiates the power to break all bondage. Though a self-centered person may help out another person, it is really only for the purpose of throwing some other monkey on the weaker person’s back. This cycle becomes a vicious game of manipulation that breeds a culture of retribution and deceit. However, love is something that can bring freedom and life. For love will not seek to bind people, but to empower them.

For the most part I do think people do want experiences. We tend to be selfish people with one goal and that is to please ourselves. However, I don’t think anyone would do very well in life if it were not for love. Joseph Carey Merrick, better know as John Merrick or even better as the Elephant Man, had one of the roughest lives I could think of, yet even in his life he was shown compassion and love. What that did for him was amazing. However, those who wanted the experience of a freak show used Merrick for their own good.

Are you living for experience or for love? Which one lasts the longest?

Learn more about Merrick at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Merrick