Love Should Not Be Bartered

'Eugene Loh, A Slice of Life, 938LIVE, a station of MediaCorp Radio'.

You usually do what you're told or asked to, even when you really don't want to do it. You keep your grudges inside, but because you feel mistreated, you grumble, complain and have frequent bursts of anger. You feel suppressed, but just can't seem to say "no".

Does that sound like you?

If you're consistently suppressing your desires to accommodate other people's needs, even it makes you really unhappy, perhaps you need a shift in self-perspective.

You probably feel that if you don't give in to others' requests or demands, that people will not love or accept you anymore. You believe that their "love" for you is based solely on the pre-requisite that you comply with their every wish.

People trapped in such relationships can't seem to refuse the requests of family members or friends. And their family members and friends have become so used to seeing them in the submissive role that they often think that's what makes them happy, so they leave them to it. These people also get feelings of self-worth from being the "victim", the "martyr", or the one who has to sacrifice his own needs to accommodate the desires of the people he loves. This is a false line of reasoning that he has allowed himself to believe.

But your family members and friends will just as easily love you even if you can't give in to their desires. Love does not require that you suppress your true self and happiness. Love does not need you to be dishonest about your real feelings.

True freedom is found in giving out of love and not out of fear. When we give out of fear of rejection, we are not really giving but bartering whatever we are giving in exchange for others' acceptance.

No one can respond to what others ask of them all the time. And you are just as worthy of love even when you can't accommodate the needs of others.

Is it time you allowed others to be responsible for their own reality? And for you to be responsible for your own happiness?

Author’s comments:
Spooky as usual. I was thinking if I should accommodate a friend’s idea. Not really accommodate also, but don’t know why after he updated me, my whole system shut down. And his friend was a bit disappointed that I have no comments.

Ever since then, I have been debating. It seems that he had pushed me back to square 1 again. And I wonder why. Why did I decide to just give up this concept? Then I found the key word on Saturday – freedom. Human are sometimes bound by certain rules. We call those attachments to life.

Money should never be a key factor in the things we do. Unfortunately, it is also true that money is essential in our well-being. Stressor had stressed that he does not want money to play the critical role either. But sometimes, I feel that it matters to him, just in a different form. I am not trying to be divine or anything, because I’m quite worried at times about my financial state if I insist on certain path. But with his latest idea, I realised he had tried to bound me. I am not exactly a free-spirited bird, more of a caged bird who yearns freedom. And I realised that if I am going to be caged again, I might as well stay in the same cage. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” I can be quite a scaredy cat I guess.

I had wanted to ponder on this further on Sunday. Unfortunately I had to help my brother do a Sudoku.java. (I realise lately every domain wish to find an algo to solve the Sudoku. My linear programming exam paper was on it too. Gosh! And I took the whole day because my java is really CMI now.) But in the midst while coding, I was thinking of what the Oracle had told me on 18/10/07
1. Dream Big
2. Stay Optimistic
3. Keep Faith

At that time, I thought the Oracle was referring to Stressor’s idea. But something seems to be missing…

(31st Oct 2007)
I had written this portion quite some time back. The past few days, I have been doing reports. Currently, I’m waiting for my colleague to vet the document and because I am still in concussed mode, I decided to write this blog. Actually another reason is because I have read another (2) articles which I have yet to post because this article is obstructing haha. I thought of removing the earlier portion but decided if this is a pensieve, I should keep this mood. I did have a talk with stressor. But because of the deadlines, I really did not give too much of a thought. Sometimes, I guess I’m just grateful of my current situation. And this grateful feeling makes it hard for me to decide certain things. I admit I’m greedy, all I want is freedom. Pure freedom. To do what I want to do regardless of consequences. Why must human be bound by so many things?

Anyway I think I should go back to check the files. As for what Oracle says, I can only say it’s weird. Last Sunday, a long time pal was puzzled over his life path too and I told him to listen to his heart. It’s funny why I always cannot practice what I preached though. Tired.. zzz