I Can Find Peace in Knowing that I Live to Assist the Needs of Others

So, I've come to believe that no one person's actions are right or wrong. They are just choices they make that support what they value. Their choices may cause harm and suffering among other people, but those are the choices they make and the result is simple just less peace and harmony. Making such choices doesn't make them a bad person or an unworthy person or any less holy than any of the rest of us. They are just choices that cause suffering.

I grew up with a strong sense that I am supposed to behave a certain way because that is the right way to behave. I had a lonely childhood and clung heavily to the right way to be so people wouldn't reject me. I was terrified of being rejected (and to a certain extent, I still am today). This was so much so, that I was terrified to express myself lest that expression be rejected, and so I was very shy.

I have now begun to let go of living to be right to protect myself from rejection and have chosen to live for love because I know that love can bring about the most peace for myself because it brings about peace for others. I firmly believe that this love I am talking about means to have the desire for the needs of others be met. For the past year or so, that is the face I have been putting on. It is a good face, but today I have realized it is just a face. I am glad that I have been behaving in a loving matter, but that is not truly where I am. I seek peace for myself, but I do not have a true sense of desiring that the needs of others be met, at least not in a general sense. I only have the desire when I have made commitments or when a desire of my own is fulfilled by behaving that way.

I do want to be in the place where I desire the needs of others to be met. I believe I only need to choose that path. But, I am away from it and need to find it; I need to constantly remind myself that is where I wish to be. But, I know in my heart that I do not desire that the needs of others be met. If I truly desired it, I would take action to help people have their needs met, and I do not act that way very much. I certainly do not wish that people's needs are not met, but I don't act for them or don't act very strongly. The conclusion is that I am a sinner. Sin is the action of undermining love. I am a sinner because I do not desire that the needs of others are met.

I now feel wounded saying that. But, that is the "devil" inside me wanting me to be what I am supposed to be and not me wanting to be who I am. What am I? I am someone who finds joy when others meet their accomplishments, when I lead them to meet their goals. I can find peace in knowing that I live to assist the needs of others.

Amen.