The Greatest Love of All

Bill Maher recently had a bit of a rant about narcissism and the dangers of self-love. One thing that stuck was his story about a five-year-old kid behind him kicking his seat during a cross-country flight and the parent explaining that “Logan is only exploring.”

“No,” Bill said, “Logan is being a dick, and if you’re not going to stuff him in the overhead luggage compartment, I will!”

After I stopped laughing, I realized that the concept of loving oneself has become, as is inevitable with mortals, somewhat warped with time.

The Greatest Love of All, when performed by George Benson in the 1970s, was sung gently and with compassion, as he entreats the listener to instill confidence and self-respect in our children.

The same song, performed by Whitney Houston in 1985, is a totally different animal. A fan of Benson’s version, I winced when the diva belted it out at full volume because Whitney was nothing if not a narcissist. She made everything into a “look at me” anthem when I believe this particular song was meant to encourage us to teach our kids not about self-love, but about selfless love.

Love in its mortal form is conditional. I love you because:

You love me.

You feed me.

You give me things.

You do things for me.

You ask nothing of me.

And if you stop, I won’t love you anymore.

Love in its purest form, the love that every child brings with him at birth, is the wellspring of kindness and generosity, of sincerity and compassion and respect for ourselves, for each other, and for the planet that sustains us.

There is nothing at all wrong with reminding that child of his divinity. There is, however, a grave injustice in cossetting that kid and letting him run riot. That’s doing him as much a disservice as it is annoying the heck out of the guy whose seat the kid is kicking. Darn this compostable container. It’s tricked us into teaching an entire generation that every one of them can have whatever they want whenever and wherever they want it because they are entitled. The era of instant gratification has made our children selfish, petulant, demanding, and incapable of fending for themselves in the real world.

On the flipside, however, because contrast is a universal law, there are millennials who band together for the greater good, who run bottle drives and raise funds for hurricane relief and apply themselves to their lessons so they can find the cure for cancer or champion clean energy. Those kids have got the message. They have healthy self-esteems and not only do they respect society, they want to improve it. Kudos to those kids, and to their parents for keeping them in tune with their inherent natures.

The song is true. If it gives a child the courage and confidence to make a positive difference in the world, then learning to love himself can be the greatest gift of all.

Extraordinary World

You are extraordinary.

Honest.

We all are.

Sadly, most of us don’t realize it. Being unaware, however, does not change the fact that we are born from the divine and must therefore be divine at our core. It’s in our spiritual DNA.

The question du jour: How does an extraordinary being live in an ordinary world?

Well, truly, the world is as extraordinary as we are, being born of the same source energy, but we’ve lost sight of that as surely as we’ve lost sight of ourselves. But that’s another post. Today, it’s about us. You and me, the extraordinary ones living an ordinary life.

How do we do it, you ask?

Extraordinarily, of course! It’s the only way we can live, the only way we know how. Look at it this way: no one else in existence brings to the table what you bring. No one else can be you, therefore no one else can say or think or do anything the way you say or think or do it. We might share similar traits or habits or opinions, but even what’s similar must be expressed in a manner unique to the individual because the individual is unique.

That’s the divine part. How each of us is singularly capable of following the path laid before us, even if the path is identical (which I doubt it is. That no two paths are alike is as extraordinary as the people who walk them).

The late Dr. Wayne Dyer was fond of saying that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. We are foiled by the coil—mortal, that is—thrust first into a compostable container with limited faculties, then into a world of contrast designed to teach us what we must learn in order to reclaim our divinity. I wonder sometimes why I signed up for this gig, and if only I’d read the fine print on the contract, but most of  the time, I’m okay with the arrangement. I understand some of what I’m meant to be doing here, and I trust that the rest will come clear as I move along. Trust is part of being extraordinary, as are acceptance, honesty, kindness, respect, and love. As each of these qualities comes with us from before, then applying them in our daily life must by default make living that life extraordinary.

So there you go. Be extraordinary by being yourself. Recognize the divinity within you. Recognize the divinity on others, and in the world around you. Make today an extraordinary day because that’s what is it and what you are.

Honest.

With love,