What Does It Mean To Love Your Neighbor?

To love your neighbor, means we should first follow the ancient golden rule “What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others.”

Second, we can show and prove that we really love our neighbor by respecting and keeping on improving our being. I believe these are the key that we can be able to find a true meaning of happiness and peaceful living.

There are people nowadays, saying that they really love their neighbors and even proclaiming that they extended support to the needy in time of their needs but these people sometimes forgot to nurture and improve their selves in overdoing so and became subject of abuse by those being helped!

That is why, for me, I firmly believe, to love our neighbor, we should first take a stand to ourselves because we have only one life to live that given by our loving God. We should live with it with self-respect, with purpose, with a strategy for continued growth.

When we are born each of us is given a white piece of blank paper to write down whatever that we want. Some write only a little, some write a lot but some just allow others to write for them. Whose fault is it?

Sheep, for self-preservation, always remain with their herd. Why do so many of us act as if we were sheep? Why do we abandon the management of our lives to others while we stumble forlornly through each day waiting only for the next command to jump or perform for our breakfast?

Nena and George O’Neil reminds us that “If we do not rise to the challenge of our unique capacity to shape our own lives, to seek the kinds of growth that we find individually fulfilling, then we can have no security: we will live in a world of sham, in which our selves are determined by the will of others, in which we will be constantly buffeted and increasingly insolated by the changes around us. Without choice we can have no direction; without a life strategy that is our own we lose our sense of self and become a cipher, a nothing.”

Og Mandino one of the best self-improvement author that I admired most added, “Whenever we allow others to control our lives we place our future in their hands, we abdicate our right to make choices beneficial to us, and we stifle all opportunity for growth. With no goals, no priorities, no life strategy of our own, we drift with the herd through an endless meadow of mediocrity, unable to break loose, to achieve even a small part of the dreams we once cherished.”

Taking a stand in life, a stand for us is integral to shifting gears, to growing through self-directed change. Nena and George O’Neil gave seven keys to creative self-management that can help us to develop a stand in life:

1. Don’t ask permission. Do it.

2. Don’t report. Check things out with yourself, not others.

3. Don’t apologize unnecessarily. This is telling others you are a self-diminisher.

4. Don’t recriminate yourself. The missed-opportunity syndrome keeps you from moving forward.

5. Don’t say “I should” or “I shouldn’t.” Ask “Why?” or “Why not?”

6. Don’t be afraid to say no or yes. Act on what you think and feel.

7. Don’t put yourself completely in the hands of another. Be a self-determiner.

Nena and George explained, “Each of these keys is a negative because it is necessary to counteract our too frequent capitulation to cultural and social dicta that insist upon our conformity, that tells us security lies in being like other people instead of fulfilling our individual needs through continuing growth. But this negative cast doesn’t mean that we must forsake others or fail to take others into account.”

They further explained, “The truth is that we can have understanding and consideration for others only to the extent that we ourselves are strong. If we are ciphers, ruled by others, then we have nothing to give others. It is only when we begin to manage our own change that we can truly give ourselves in a caring and sharing way, we give to another or to a project or situation out of our feelings of independence, self-reliance, and security, not out of self-diminishment and weakness. A corollary to these key is: be kind to yourself. Few of us can reach a compassionate kindness for others unless we can be kind to our selves first.”

In other words, we can only, truly love our neighbor if we can keep on improving ourselves or by knowing how to love ourselves for the saying goes that what we can only have, that is the only thing we can give!

Wish you many blessings to come and God Bless!

Moises P. Reconalla

About the Author

Moises P. Reconalla is the School Guidance Counselor, College Instructor and Working Students Supervisor at North Davao College, Panabo City, Philippines.

Mr. Reconalla has taught several courses at the college including: Guidance and Counseling, General Psychology, Philippine History: Roots and Development, General Anthropology and Sociology, and Dr. Jose Rizal: Life, Works & Writings.

All rights reserved worldwide. Copyright 2007 by Moises Padin Reconalla

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To love your neighbor, means we should first follow the ancient golden rule “What you do not want others to do to you, do not do to others.”

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