Sometimes It Just Hurts

There is a song from the 60's by Gene Pitney, "It Hurts to be in Love".  It's a song about unrequited love, or loving someone who only thinks of you as a friend.   It goes like this:

"It hurts to be in love when the only one you love turns out to be someone who's not in love with you. It hurts to love her so when deep down inside you know she will never want you, no matter what you do.
And so you cry a little bit (Hurts to be in love) Oh, you die a little bit (Hurts to be in love) Day and night, night and day It hurts to be in love this way"   Here is Youtube video to listen

I think there is a deeper level of truth in that song.  It hurts to love the world, to love people, both specific and general.  We can do such damage to one another, we say and do hurtful and harmful  things, we get positional about others behaviors, we get up in arms that someone has a differing opinion or belief of God than ours.   We create more drama than any soap opera could possibly convey. 

Yes, it hurts to be in love specifically with anyone, a spouse, a family member, a friend.  But it also hurts to love a job, a home or possession like our grandmothers ring, or grandfathers WWII footlocker.  Once we love fully, what is looming right next to us is the presence of the natural impermanence of life itself.  The fleeting transitory quality of the passing of time.

To be a real master of oneself is to embrace both the pain and joy of love and loving.  It feels like you are on the verge of laughter and tears at any moment.  At least that's what it feels like to me.  It almost feels uncontrollable.  In these moments of a kind of edgy almost irritation, I breathe.  I surrender to the feelings and imagine that many of our profits and masters have traveled here before.  It is the path less traveled.