“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.” Khalil Gibran
“The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.” Nathaniel Hawthorne
I don’t believe the opposite of love is hate. i think the opposite of love is doubt. We love the people who constantly come through for us. How could we not? It is easy to care for these people because they help us and stand by us for the most part. parents love their kids regardless of any love in return. Many kids love parents regardless of the fact they were abandoned or abused.
When anyone hurts us deliberately or accidentally we swiftly turn on them. It isn’t from a lack of love but a lack of doubt in the relationship. Kids have faith their parents love them even though they are abused. They stand by this belief until they are given an alternative method of measurement. When the questions arise the love fades.Our doubts can become overwhelming and daunting. As much as we want to go back to the state of innocence of not being aware of the truth. The truth really does hurt because it forces us to confront our solid or fabricated ideas. the wife who ignores the shortcomings of her husband lives in a happier world. She sees her world through her own eyes and not through the eyes of what is. The same is true of the husband. The ruse is over when either person questions the situation. As soon as doubt arises, faith is tested.
Doubt is not always a bad thing and It may not mean we lose our faith but it puts us in a state of maturing. It can go well or poorly. It depends on how closely we view a situation and can admit the wrong and right of the whole matter. I suppose this is why so many marriages break apart and friendships fail and siblings become alienated. But we must distinguish between an honest review and a quick doubt which leads us into breakups of all kinds.
We seem only able to love on our own terms. If love is easy and continual we are happy. When we are confronted with intrigue we panic and lose our grip on the situation. Walking away always appears to be the best option. We distance ourselves from love and live in a state of doubt. this is sad because it is a land of a sort of hopelessness. technically we are asleep because it is easier to deal with life’s problems when we drift through it.
Doubt causes pain and confusion. Our world is jolted and we must adjust to situations beyond our control. It is the husband who must accept the flaws he sees in his wife for the first time. It is the wife who must accept the less than perfect husband who helps out infrequently as far as she is concerned. It is the orphaned child searching for the parents they never knew yet not truly believing with their hearts they were really wanted. It is the siblings who desired a close friendship but instead received jealousy, distancing and constant bickering. Friends are the largest faction and the most changed and switched members of society. When a friend lets you down you trade him or her in for a new one.
In every situation doubt began and grew to the point of a permeating poison which filtered throughout our minds and bodies causing them uncertainties in our truths and beliefs. We begin to think how crazy we were to think they were on our side, loved us and cared about us. Without further contemplation, we cut our connections and move onward. We never stop to think over these life altering changes to our lives nor do we look back.
We don’t even question our consistency in changes and how often they occur throughout our lives. Many of us simply deduce we outgrew certain people, and possibly we have. We acquire new friends because of our changes in interests or because they justly deserved to be left behind so we think. Most of us go with our doubts and the chill we exhibit blocks out attempts at reconnecting.
I just wondered how we reason all of this inter-relatedness. How do we live our lives as a loving people yet forget about those people we leave behind without a care. We refuse to give them any chance and even at times our unconditional love turns to conditional. We all make mistakes. We get tired and say and act in ways we might never have acted if we were well rested. Many issues on our minds clouds us with angry feelings that burst forth in angry retorts. Our minds build minor irritations into major catastrophes. Then we come to a place of no return. Things build upon other things and we break our bonds.
Why can’t we see ourselves with our pout faces and moody dispositions. Even those who have been adopted must come to terms with the facts that maybe they were not wanted by the original family for unfathomable reasons but they certainly were sought after by the second family. Maybe they were loved by the first family also and are being prayed for every night but they just don’t know it.
It appears to me that we are left with two choices as usual. We can doubt all things and with good reasons. This renders us depleted of love and the ability to love. It also lends to being unfulfilled as a human being. We can’t trust our parents loved us as much as our siblings yet we now have kids and love all of them. Do we see the contradiction? We see our kids play together and have happy times together. We watch them hug each other and help each other yet we doubt our siblings love for us. we forget our own happy childhood memories. We most definitely remember the bad parts of our childhood but some of the wonderful happenings are faded and dim.
So goes it with impressions. We recall bad impressions from others even if they were minor or few. Good impressions fade quickly. It is hard for us to hold onto love. We see it more as vaporous rather than solid. It is so easy for it to drift away. Maybe if we captured the moments and memories they might form a solid love in our hearts that would be difficult to lose.
We ought to try to hold on tightly to the love we earn throughout our lives. In the end it is the only thing that matters. It is the only measurement that will be used on us as to the quality of our existence. All that matters about our lives will be summed up by the amount of love we gave away and received. Never allow doubt to filter into your love. It is like a weed that will swiftly take over and kill your love before it ever has a chance to grow. Far better to love freely without any doubts than to doubt everything and be left with nothing.
“Being a father has been, without a doubt, my greatest source of achievement, pride and inspiration. Fatherhood has taught me about unconditional love, reinforced the importance of giving back and taught me how to be a better person.” Naveen Jain
“Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever.” Nancy Lopez
