I love 'em, I just don't like 'em

"There may be some people you dislike, but you can still love them."

-- Leonard Willoughby. Every Day Tao, p. 109.

Not everyone is your cup of tea. Your personality and their personality are just totally incompatible. That's a nice way of saying that there are plenty of assholes out there! Question is: Can you love them in spite of their supreme assholishness?

That's your challenge -- love everyone, even the people you don't like. In fact, the whole spiritual path in a nutshell, is summarized quite nicely by the Hard Rock Cafe's motto -- Love All, Serve All.

The trick, so to speak, is to see through persona to essence. In essence we are all lovable. Not only lovable but One. As the old hymn says, "We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord." Our personas, on the other hand, are a motley collection of cobbled together masks that we wear more or less uncomfortably as we go about our business in the world.

Some people have put together some pretty nice personalities. Other folks act all mean, nasty and ugly. No matter. Love 'em all. That's your assignment for today. Hell, that's your assignment for the rest of your life. Everyday you can count on one or more pop quizzes, many of which you'll fail miserably. At least initially.

Look deeper. Look past all the bad stuff, and even past all the good stuff. Look to the center, to the core. Look so deeply that love is looking right back at you, whether the other person knows it or not. Love looking at love. What's not to like?