Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Love or Fear?

We've all heard, in some form or another, that you're either motivated by Love or Fear. My question to that is: How? and/or Why?
In observing the individual words, I began to wonder what both Love and Fear was.
        Here is what I've found...
Charity vs Selfishness.
  • Charity is the purely sincere love for ones fellow man. 
  • Selfishness is the antitheses of that noble a virtue, choosing to look out for ones self, often without the consideration for others. 
Love for yourself, or for others? Selfishness, or selflessness?

Fear vs Faith.

  • Fear, when translated to English from the Bible (specifically the Old Testament, from Hebrew translation), doesn't translate over 100% accurately. In many cases it can be replaced by the word 'Respect'. 'Fear':Respect::tails:heads. One's negative while the other is positive.
In one case, acting out of respect for ones parents can be done because you Love them, or because you are afraid (Fearful) of the consequences that may result by you not doing as they direct. Perhaps you are already aware of what the outcome of obeying a specific rule, request, or command will be and you're just doing so for-- not entirely selfish reasons, but for some personal reason all the same.
  • Faith is not just a passive thing that one believes. Faith, of course, is a form of action. It's an active and consistently moving forward entity in all of our lives. When Faith is present Fear is gone. 
 Faith is the light of the burning candle amidst the enshrouding fear of darkness. Fear is the absence of Faith, just as darkness is the absence of light. With Faith, you and I can overcome the fears that inhibit and restrict our potential.

So it's clear to me that in the end you either have positive, or negative motivators.

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