The Hidden Water of Life
When generativity, creativity, generosity, and the capacity to embrace life dry up, the Water of Life has gone underground. At such times, the earth becomes arid, life becomes devoid of meaning, the ground of culture cracks and splits, and gaps develop among peoples and between people and nature. Only water can bring the pieces back together, awaken seeds hidden in the ground, and enliven the parched Tree of Life.
- Michael J. Meade, Men and the Water of Life
Have you lost your passion? Perhaps it could be for work. Or for your significant other. Or, perhaps it’s some goal, some pursuit, some mission that you have been faithfully serving all your life but the realities of the day-to-day has worn your passion down. This article is simply one person’s opinion of how to get that passion back.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy. If you no longer feel that love anymore, chances are that it’s not too late and that love hasn’t completely died. Rather, it’s lying dormant, and all it takes is water to make it thrive again.
If apathy is the opposite of love, then what is hate? It is misguided love. It’s simply love that has a misalignment due to either internal or external factors. Disappointment and anger is when expectations are not met, which leads to the inability for that passion to be expressed. Emotions are still expressed, but they are in a much different and altered form. However, if there were no emotions to begin with, there would simply be no expectations or actions at all. The true opposite of love is the absence of love.
Only Love Can Create Something from Nothing
We see love creating something from nothing all the time, such as in community service projects like Habitat for Humanity and Big Brother. We naturally have care and compassion inside of us, but it’s the external realities and misguided expectations that can misalign it. Just as in a machine, the misalignment of a key component can wear down the machine over time. The misaligned emotion can wear you out to the point where that original passion is nearly nonexistent. However, if it was once there, then there should still be enough remnants left that can be brought back to life with just more water.
That vision, that desire, that original passion is the water that can revive the hopes and dreams again. Figure out what the source of that passion, that true love that started it all, and get it back. Let it revive you again, because love is the only thing in this world that truly is limitless in supply.
You just have to remember once in a while to get it again.
yazgunu
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I am speechless Al i dont have word to say what is there in my heart for your article.
for some it takes life time to understand it and for some its matter of time before they realize what they are missing in life or relation
Find ways to get the love flowing again, that’s great advice. I guess it’s our own thought patterns and erroneous beliefs that stopped the love from flowing in the first place.
What a beautiful article you’ve written on love! Stumbled!
@ Sunil - thanks man! I really appreciate the sincere feedback you gave. You’re so right… some people miss out because they never quite figure out what they are looking for in life. It’s just not something that can be told to them, but rather they have to figure it out for themselves. I appreciate your comment.
@ Marelisa - agreed, sometimes the interruption of that flow can begin from external influences, but ultimately we have control over our internal influences. Thank you for sharing!
@ Evelyn - thank you for the comment and the stumble! This post was a little bit more open for me than usual, so I appreciate the positive feedback.
A lovely post! I like the idea that hate is just misaligned love!
I like your perspective that apathy is the opposite of love and not hate. Thought provoking. I’ll think about it.
Hi Al,
I truly believe the statement you mad, “Disappointment and anger is when expectations are not met, which leads to the inability for that passion to be expressed.”
One thing I learned years ago is that if we can avoid having expectations of others, we end up much further ahead. Let the other person(s) be themselves, and when they do something out of the ordinary, we end up being pleasantly surprised.
In relationships, it comes down to communication, not unexpressed expectations.
Fabulous post!
@ Mary - thanks! I truly do believe that negative emotions like disappointment and anger is misaligned love.
@ Bamboo - whether there’s positive emotions like love or negative emotions like anger, there is at least some passion present. It’s when there’s no emotion is when the life is gone. Glad I was able to give you something to think about, irregardless if you agree
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@ Barbara - absolutely agreed!! I think by far, the biggest reason for couples fighting is that expectations are not met. Communication is so much better when the expectations are openly discussed, rather than doing the “blame game”. Why can’t there be some Manual of Life that puts this advice on page 1? Thanks for the feedback!
You said..”Disappointment and anger is when expectations are not met, which leads to the inability for that passion to be expressed.” This is very interesting to me because of what you said about unmet expectations handcuffing our ability to express passion. I recall watching an interview with Danes (Denmark repeatedly has the honor of being the world’s happiest nation) who said a large contributing factor to their happiness was there low expectations.
When expectations are lower they are more often met. Thus they have less blocks to happiness and passion. What do you think of that?
Al ~
Success is not as complicated subject as we’ve made it. Success comes to you when you focus on others rather than yourself. I’ve done some work for Habitat for Humanity and it was a wonderful experience. As you’ve articulated well, love is the mother of passion. I would extend this to the fact that when you show your love for all human beings, you start to move to the greatness that you’ve never imagined in your life.
Shilpan
@ Tom - I think you nailed it. I think I was watching the same piece you were watching. It was on 60 minutes, and they were going around interviewing Danish people and surprisingly, they just simply said they were content even though, according to the piece, “their neighbors, the Norwegians, are richer, and their other neighbors, the Swedes, are healthier.” Their explanation was consistent with what you said.
Here is the link to the 60 minute piece. Oh, and thanks for sharing!
@ Shilpan - that’s pretty awesome that you worked for Habitat for Humanity. You speak the truth - success comes when we focus on others rather than ourselves. There’s no need to overthink this point.
Hi Al
Great post! I do not have the eloquence to express how timely this is for me, so all I will say is THANK YOU.
In love, light and abundance x x x
PS: What inspired you to write this?
Lola Fayemi / Nourishment for your spiritual awakenings last blog post..How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, egg or coffee bean?
Hi Lola - thanks for the comment. I’m glad you found some value from it!
Regarding the inspiration, I guess it mainly was due to a close friend of mine that’s in a very noble profession and was starting to get jaded. It was kind of an open letter to my friend, but I figure that there might be others who might need some words of encouragement as well. I also wouldn’t be completely honest if I didn’t mention that it was also a reminder post to myself. I’m glad that you liked the post
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Apathy being the opposite of love definitely makes sense to me. I’m not really one for hating, but I do fall into periods of apathy which usually are followed up by depression. Obviously it’s losing the love and passion - I think I’m in a bit of that at the moment with my writing and the general direction of my life. Maybe you could do a follow up article to this with some ideas of how we get that water flowing again.
And I hung out with a few Danish girls in my twenties and they were three of the happiest, most fun loving, simply content people I have ever met. Things that might bother me and I would fixate on they would brush off as a ‘drag’ but hardly a big deal.
I envy people who can see the world that way. I have always been very sensitive and take way too much stuff on board - other people’s emotions, problems and expectations, and even world crises. It’s a hard way to live.
Kelly
Hi Kelly,
Thanks so much for sharing your honest thoughts. Being totally truthful and asking the right questions is something I find tough to do sometimes, and you were able to do that in your comments. Progress can’t happen until we do that.
I began writing a fully detailed response to the question you posed, but it was a bit clumsy trying to fit it in a comment. I had a post I was going to publish today and had a different post about careers scheduled for next week, but I’ve changed my mind and will finish that post and publish that first, either today or tomorrow.
I know your question wasn’t directly about careers, but my response was overlapping so much with that post. Basically I see life being a monomyth (similar to what I said in an earlier post). The hero searches for that treasure or that magic elixir that will make her world a better place, and after the treasure is found, the hero finds that the journey itself was just as valuable. In other words, both the process and the product are important.
The process (journey) the hero goes through must also align with her strengths (I also talked about that in a different post). When we do things we enjoy and are good at, happiness naturally comes with it. With regards to writing, I’ve read your work and you’re a great writer and a fantastic storyteller and I can also tell you enjoy it, so you got the process down. However, the process is meaningless unless there is some worthy product we’re going after. It could be finding the cure to cancer. Or it could be something simple like fixing broken cars. If it’s something that adds value and is what we’re good at, then it’s a worthwhile goal.
All this is just my humble opinion, of course. I didn’t talk about ideas on figuring out what goals we should pursue, but an article about that would also be valuable.
Regarding your Danish friends, I totally see their point of view. I’m gonna have to borrow one of Marelisa’s personal manifestos, which was one of my favorites: “To always act within my sphere of influence and to focus on those things that are within my control.”
Always good to read what you have to say