Welcome to Leap Of Faith

You bring to light some interesting points. With each generation I think the separation will get greater and the care and respect for those around us will be less. You only need to interact with some of the newer generation of teens and even pre-teens to see this. Somewhere along the line we seem to be losing the basics of respect and caring for other human beings. The scary part is, as we get older they will be more in control of what we do in our everyday lives. Self awareness is a hard hill to climb for most of us. The joys and benefits are there when we start climbing that hill, but so are the cuts and grazes we get on the way. I try and instill some basic core values into our young children, honesty, respect, consideration and love. Do the right thing even if others around don't do so. I would rather feel at peace (and hopefully my children will) in knowing that I have done the right thing. I would rather resist the urge of the 'quick gain' to keep my honesty and integrity. If somehow people can see that the long term outcome is so much better - and indeed better for themselves - perhaps we will see a little more of what you are talking about. Society 'bounces off' each other, so the more we get exposed to dishonesty, lack of consideration, lack of humility, the more people think it's Ok. Equally, if the situation can start to reverse then the same principle can apply and more acts of considerate and decent behaviour can follow.

This passage rings true for me also, over time I began to realise that the hurt I experienced as a child was bottled up inside me, but was reflected outwards as anger, not hatred. Over the years I began to realise that hatred got me nowhere and just took up too much energy that I could be better using as love and compassion. I realised that the opposite of love, is not hatred, it is indifference, the opposite of hatred is not love either, it too is indifference. I stopped hating things and people, better using that energy to love, and began realising it is more useful to feel indifferent towards someone who hurt me, and not give them the power of still being able to trigger strong emotions within me. No longer do I hate, I feel nothing... indifferent to the ones who have hurt me.

Hi Kerin, Thanks for your contribution to this piece. Indifference and detatchment are things that I am forever looking into. I have always felt people and life deeply and have at times felt hate I think. However whilst it would be great to not feel hate if I feel it I then honour it by understanding why such strong emotion has been felt. By gaining understanding I find that I hate far less but gain much knowledge/wisdom.However I agree 100% that carrying hurt is not helping anyone. So in my life I am dedicated to feeling everything but not taking on hurt.Getting there gradually but am feeling much stronger the more I learn. Best Wishes Tony.