If you understand love you know loving does not require
you to mechanically follow a set pattern of "right" actions. You know
instead that if you love you will do the best you can in every situation, even
if you cannot determine what the real solution is. If you love you do your
best, and doing your best is something you can always do. Doing your best
simply requires that which you are capable of, no more.
This does not mean loving is any easier because you do not have to know what
the "correct" answer is. On the contrary, to
say love requires you to do your best is to say that love requires of you all
you have to give. Love requires everything you can give, your total effort. By
requiring only that which you are capable of giving, it is always your choice
whether you love or don't love. If you understand love you know it is your choice, and your choice alone, to love or not to love. It is
a profound responsibility to be able, every moment of your life, to love or not
to love.
Two of the most misused words in the English language are the words
"can", and its opposite "cannot". Everywhere you go you
hear people saying they can't do something, or they can only do so much.
Everyone declares what he or she can and cannot do.
How are these words misused? The word "can" is frequently used to
announce a person's intention to do that which there was never any doubt of
their ability to do. Similarly, people say they "cannot" do that
which they can, but do not want to, do. The words can and cannot have become so
popular you seldom hear anyone say, "I don't want to go to the
movie", instead they say, "Sorry but I can't go".
If you are unable to do something, then you may say, "I cannot do
that" with the assurance that what you have said is correct. Yet when you
use the remarkable power of the word cannot to relieve the human mind of the
unwelcome responsibility of making a choice, you are not really relieved of
anything at all. If we are presented with the choice to do something, and we do
not choose to do it, we have made the choice not to do it. When faced with a
choice between doing what is right and what is wrong, failure to make a choice
is a decision not to do that which is right. Failure to choose to do right is,
in and of itself, wrong.
In day to day living, the most important effect of the word "cannot"
is the strengthening of a thoughtless, habitual denial of giving love. Since
love only requires that you do your best, something you can always do, you can
always choose to love.