Love comes in various forms and varying degrees. But the greatest kind of love is not loving yourself. Nor is it the love that you have for your family and friends. Rather, it is your love for humanity.
Why is that, you might ask. That’s because loving yourself or your family and friends is much easier than loving all of humanity.
For most of us, we form our identity based on our race, religion, skin color, and political leanings among others. We tend to identify with a certain group and call them “our people”. We also tend to be more welcoming towards people whom we regard as “one of us”. Yet we often regard with suspicion those who we think don’t belong in our social strata.
But have you ever felt a kinship towards humankind in general rather than just with a select group?
Only a few of us would have answered yes. But that is not entirely our fault. Most of our biases stem from the society we live in. Admit it or not, some of us grew up thinking that some groups of people are better than others. This stereotyping and xenophobia has been going on for some time – going all the way to when men started forming their own tribes.
This also makes love for humanity one of the most difficult kinds of love. It’s so easy to love those people whom you identify with. But it takes a special kind of courage to love people no matter who they are or where they came from.
Yes, I know it’s difficult to trust much less even love humanity with all the things going on in the world right now. But the wars, hunger, and pandemic we are currently going through make it all the more reason to spread love rather than hate. We already have so much of the latter and where did it take us? Maybe it’s time we try the former.
You may not realize it but you can show your love for others even with simple gestures. Here are some of them:
