The Solution

Categories: Blog Sep 16, 2018

Back in June I was driving my car one night and out of the blue a thought went through my head, “If the solution is not LOVE, it is not the solution.” It was random. At the time I thought it was “deep” but I didn’t know what to do with it. So, like any reasonable person would do, I posted it on Facebook as my status. After all, the Facebook world could use some positivity. right? Anyway, not knowing what to make of it, I left it on Facebook. Or so I thought. 

But like any good boomerang, or a gnat determined to break your concentration, this “thought” has been popping up in my head a lot lately. It just keeps coming back around again and again. Especially when I am finding myself in tough situations. I knew when it first popped in my head that it had some weight to it, but now, three months later, it just seems heavier and heavier. It's making an impression.

Like all of us, I have distractions, interactions, circumstances, conversations, interruptions, situations, and hurricanes I have to deal with. In many of these events I want to resist, fight, complain, knuckle up, rage and sometimes cry. In most of these events I always have decisions that need to be made, or decisions that “happen” to be made by my reactions. And I’m human. There is this version of me, "the greatest version of me" that I want to be, and then there is the version of me that I currently am; sometimes there is a deep and large chasm between these two versions. 

Anyway, my point is, life has these events that result in decisions that need to be made or solutions that need to be found. And lately, through these events, I keep remembering, “If the solution is not LOVE, it is not the solution.” Another way I could say that is, “If the decision is not made out of LOVE, it is the wrong decision.” I am now thinking this phrase keeps coming into my head to guide me, to help me become the “Greatest version of me,” to help me SHIFT from my natural inclinations to my desired state of being. 

Why am I sharing all of this? Because I think all of us, in our heart of hearts, want to “do the right things”, we want to love other people and we want to make the right choices. I think most  of us really and truly want to make the world better or we at least come to a point where we want to clean up the messes that we’ve made. I think all of us have this idea or notion of the “greatest version of ourselves” that we want to become. I don’t think any of us set out to be selfish, prideful, hurtful, disrespectful, angry, bitter or spiteful. Yet, sometimes despite our better judgement and against our desired outcomes, we often don’t choose the path of LOVE when we act, react, or “solve” our dilemmas. Sometimes we harm others. Sometimes we harm ourselves. 

I may be naive, but if we could take a deep breath, pause and remember the “greatest version of ourselves” that we want to be, if we could allow LOVE to guide our thoughts and actions, we could actually become the “greatest version of ourselves” and we could actually make the world better, brighter and healthier. We could make the best decisions, solve the greatest problems, help heal the most hurting hearts; maybe even allow our own hearts to be healed…

I apologize, this article has nothing to do about moving better. Or doesn’t it? The truth is Life moves. How it moves depends on us. We get to shape it by our choices and actions. How we think, what we decide from our intentions greatly determines what happens to the world around us, AND it greatly determines how our actual bodies move as well. I guarantee if you see a person moving fluidly and gracefully, you see a person with joy in their heart who is capable of good decisions. I guarantee if you see an angry person you see someone who makes poor decisions and moves like a stiff walking stick. Everything affects everything. It’s always a two-way street. 

We all have a greater version of ourselves that we want to be, that we can be. What if we decided to be that version? What if we made all our decisions out of LOVE? What if we even tried to take advantage of the two-way street that is US and tried to purposefully breathe and rock every day while we intently marinate or meditate on becoming that greater version? Maybe if we move better we can LOVE better and maybe if we LOVE better we can move better. Maybe…

To be honest, I’m just thinking out loud to you. I hardly ever know what I’m going to write or say until it’s written. That's part of what makes it fun and it is how I learn things.

If the solution is not LOVE, it’s not the solution. I know I’m still going to wrestle with this phrase. But I think it’s worth wrestling with. It may help close the chasm.

Thanks for reading my thoughts. 

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