Loving the unlovable: Extending love to the unwanted
Channel: Quest for a Meaningful Life
Date: 2019-12-21

The previous video in this conversation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iySMIVDym4

Got a comment from viewer Words Words referring to an earlier comment, where a viewer felt unloved and unwanted. 
And Words Words's comment was that everybody wants to be wanted, but by people that we want. 
And what about the people that nobody wants, mentioning the "poor, disabled, disfigured, non-related elderly, or mentally ill". 
And Words Words says, "When feeling ugly and unloved, go and love those whom you yourself consider 'ugly and unloved' and you may see the very definitions of 'ugly' 'unlovable' and even love itself, change." So this is a very interesting idea, and a very interesting new perspective to apply. 
Feeling unwanted: it's really a really powerless feeling, because we are simply placing hope in other people and wishing that other people would behave in a different way towards us. 
So it's entirely powerless. 
We can just simply wish, oh, you know, I wish that other people would behave differently. 
It's not something that we can control. 
But choosing how we behave towards other people, that is something that is in our control. 
So what about this idea? I really see two ways of looking at this idea of if you want to be loved and you want to be wanted, of starting it yourself. 
First is what I talked about in that previous video, the idea of you appreciating yourself. 
You decide for yourself what is good and what makes you good. 
You decide your own value, and you choose to love yourself. 
But I hadn't considered this other angle, which would be you can actually give that feeling towards other people. 
And that somehow this leads to a better result for you, even though it's not something that inherently, automatically solves the problem of being unwanted, because simply showing love for other people does not automatically make you desirable. 
But there's something about it, through the act of seeing the best in other people, looking for the good. 
It's like a disposition of being open to seeing what is good about people. 
Instead of assuming that a certain type of person, OK, that person is in a certain group, OK, they are mentally ill, so now that's their group, and they're done. 
They're criminals, they're underclass, or whatever the outcast group is for each of us. 
We put somebody in that group, and then OK, that's their box. 
That's OK, that's a crazy person. 
OK, that's a homeless person. 
OK, that's a criminal. 
Just they're in their box, and we no longer need you apply any more thought or feeling towards them. 
They're done. 
And they are unwanted. 
They're people that we don't want, and we just keep them separate. 
But imagine taking on the attitude of being open to seeing the good qualities in these people. 
And you could say "Be open to the good in anybody", and to really test it, you can test it by trying it out on what you consider to be the very worst people, the very lowest people. 
You can test it on them. 
If it works on them, if you can see the good in the very worst and lowest people, find something to love and appreciate in these people, then really, you can certainly do it for the people that are easier to appreciate. 
Does that solve the problem of wanting other people to want you? Not directly. 
But as the viewer comments, "you may see the very definitions of 'ugly' 'unlovable' and even love itself, change." Through this change of attitude, this is a transformational activity. 
Through changing perspective on these other people, it will inevitably change the way that we look at ourselves, the way that we see what does it mean to be loved, and what does it mean to be wanted. 
So I think this is an excellent idea, and something certainly worth trying. 
So thank you for that comment. 
And I would like to hear if there's any follow-up. 
If anybody is trying this, I would be happy to hear: what is it like? What is a way that one can do this? I mean, we're not going to, you know, open our door and invite homeless people and criminals into our home. 
And yet, I can't in principle say that you should never do such a thing. 
It seems quite impractical, but that would be an extreme, but possibly extremely principled, thing to do. 
But how can we actually do this? How can we actually extend that idea of love and extending the idea of expanding the circle of who we consider "worthy", as the term the commenter used. 
It may be going too far to become friends with all of these people that are considered unworthy. 
Is that too much? Maybe from a practical view, it's too much, even though in principle, it can be good. 
But it seems like even just a shift in perspective, just the willingness to look at somebody who would be easy to dismiss, and to notice that reaction of dismissing them as being of a certain undesirable type, notice that, and then give it a second thought, to reconsider [...]