How you love, how you give, and how you suffer is just about the sum of who you are. Everything in life is a subset of one or a combinatorial function of all three. Seek people who love and give generously, who have the strength to suffer without causing damage. (Only strong people are safe people, the measure of strength being not the absence of vulnerability — and “weakness” is just a judgment term for vulnerability — but the ability to carry one’s vulnerability with such self-awareness and valor so as not to harm other lives.) Seek to be such a person.
— Maria Popova in “18 Life-Learnings from 18 Years of The Marginalian”
This struck me as so beautiful and so true. “The strength to suffer without causing damage” is significant and hard work. It’s not enough to love well and to give well. So much of life is suffering that it’s worth learning to suffer with the kind of strength described here.
xo,
Beth
