Sometimes I wonder how much of our suffering we allow or impose on ourselves simply in search of our worthiness to accept our own respect and appreciation. I’d written before some years ago that we often cause suffering in another so that we can then love them, as in, “You have suffered for me, so I can love you now.” The eventual shock of realizing the sacrifice made for you destroys the walls of self-righteousness and protection. The suffering sacrifice of another creates the willingness and capacity to do the same. Finally, love and respect (respect is part of the body of love) come from the recognition of something else already given up for them. Within the individual, you or me, a similar process takes place toward oneself. It is as if we know some- where that we are not worthy of our own love or respect until we have earned the right to it, and that is mainly through some kind of suffering. That suffering may be generic, as in a life lived in which tragedy after tragedy accumulate, or it may be specific, as in the constant sacrifice of other easier things for a being or vision. Or, perhaps more correctly, it is either consciously chosen or not. Darrell Calkins
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  2. My dear, Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains. For all things will... - Charles Bukowski

  3. If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled? - Jodi Picoult

  4. Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the way we expect. - J.k. Rowling

  5. Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone. - Mitch Albom

More Quotes By Darrell Calkins
  1. She was supposed to be happy... why couldn't she just be happy for a few moments? Why couldn't she just forget everything bad going on her life, and just be happy?

  2. She, herself, had only been in love once and it ended worse than a train wreck would, and she hated herself for what she had become because of it. Because of her ex-boyfriend, she didn’t trust easily, she didn’t date as much anymore, and she...

  3. It doesn’t matter where you’re at, when you’re with people you love, you’re where you belong.

  4. Francesca was a strong believer in fate. She assumed he picked up the habit from her therapist who was constantly preaching that “everything happened for a reason”, but regardless she now spouted out that philosophy like she was paid to. Everything big in her life,...

  5. Sometimes I wonder if other people think about death - frequently, or just in general. I wonder if they think about it casually, like they’re thinking of the weather, or if they think of it lying awake at night, haunted by their own thoughts. I...

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