Choices, Love, Hate, and a Smack Right in the Face.

Now listening to: Small Leaks Sink Ships

I've come to a conclusion:
You can't change people.
If they truly want to change, they will change.
If they don't want to change, they will not change.
It is not my ability or duty to make someone do one or the other.
It is only my ability and duty to love someone,
when they make the right choices,
or even when they make the wrong choices.
Love is the answer.
Love does not make someone choose.

I understand this.

So, why am I so pissed off when my friend(s) don't do the right thing?

There's some quotes that come to mind that help me put things into perspective:

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people... ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards... And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone... who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others."
-- From "The Great Sin" Out of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis



The things I hate in others are, in fact, are the things I see in myself that I hate.

dang it.

shalom.

p.s. I took out the parts of the quote about how Christians don't fall into this subconscious trap, because, honestly, I think that Christians make this mistake as well as anybody else. Sorry if that seems to take it out of context, but I don't worship every word he writes, but I do like a lot of his points made. If you would like to read the whole writing I took snippets from, you can go here.