love is all around

Excerpts taken from the book the Zahir, by Paulo Coelho:

Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by out triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives

I have experienced this phenomena in my lifetime during a particularly difficult time of mourning after the death of my brother. Although I do not feel this statement is absolute it does resonate a truth I experienced during that time of my life.

If I behave in the way people expect me to behave, I will become their slave. It requires enormous self-control not to succumb…

Amen brother.

“That’s how love got lost,” he said. “When we started laying down rules for when love should or shouldn’t appear.”

Many of us live with this programming, although it does not support freedom:

“We must never make our parents sad, even if this means giving up everything that makes us happy.”

With love, Krista