The positive and the similarities

It is very easy, when presented with a new situation, to look for the drawbacks, ignore the advantages, and construct a Frankenstein future out of the body parts gleaned. This future is alarming but has no life of its own, because it involves a rejection of most of reality. Similarly, when a new person heaves into view, whether in one's closer circle or in a broader domain, hunting for every flaw, defect, fault, and point of difference is an oddly enticing pastime. There is a perverse pleasure in the self-assured, self-righteous condemnation and clarity concerning impending doom. The mental image created of the person is the magnified and distorted Picasso eye or the Francis Bacon melted smear, not the reality. To love, one has to see the full picture, not (rotten) cherry pick the parts that seek to fulfil the ego's plan to damn from its mountaintop. To counterbalance its counterproductive drive, spend one day looking only for the positive in each situation or the similarities with each person. The gulf between oneself and others becomes a crack in the pavement, and the glow of God residing in every single person suffuses the entire universe with its benign influence.

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