Love More, Love Less; Never Hate
The definition of love according to Webster is an intense feeling of deep affection, while the definition of a miracle is a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.
I must disagree with Webster, love is in no way just a feeling; love is a miracle. Love is the driving force behind every decision we make. Love makes the world go round.
I wonder is it actually possible to hate? Does human programming account for hatred? When one commits a “hate” crime or acts out of “hatred,” maybe they just love something else more. When someone murders another person, maybe they do not hate their victim, but rather they love the attention or adrenaline they get from committing the crime more than they love the victim.
I claim to hate sweet potato casserole, but if it was the only food I had ever tasted, I imagine that I would love it—so I guess it seems that I just love other foods more than I love sweet potato casserole.
Considering the phenomenon of non-existent hate, can we control who and what we love? If we love everything and everyone (since there is no hate—hypothetically) to a certain extent, then we should be able to increase our love for people and things by focusing on the aspects of that person or thing that harvest the love we have for it. If there are things in our life that we love a lot, and need to love less, then we should be able to focus on everything in the world we love more than it and our love should diminish for the undesired object after comparison.
Maybe we cant control how much we love something, or to what degree we love one thing over another; but we can manipulate our love for things by placing emphasis on lovable characteristics of things we need to love more and withdrawing our focus from lovable attributes of things we need to love less.
I need to love God more and love worldly possessions less. I will focus on all the reasons I love God and compare them to the reasons I love worldly possessions, then I will centralize my thoughts to the reasons loving God is better than loving worldly possessions. I will no longer focus on why I love worldly possessions, but I will also never incorporate hate. I hope to love God more and worldly possessions less, but I do not aim to hate one thing as means to love another thing more.
