Love To Hate

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"Love To Hate"

A few semesters back, one of my students had this tattooed on her wrist. I'm not really sure exactly why she chose this particular phrase, though I think it had something to do with a relationship in her life that she loved and hated at the same time.

However, I was struck by her choice to use the phrase "love to hate" because it shows great wisdom into how we view many of our relationships. I'm not suggesting to go out and tattoo that on your wrist, but I do think her tattoo brings up a good point.

In general, it's easy to be a bad friend. It's easy to love our friends so much and then judge them behind their backs, even if it's just in our mind. This is especially the case with friends who own more material possessions than we do.

When a friend gets a new car, necklace, or a trip to France, we say, "Love it!" We ogle over their trinket, we look up tours for them to take on their trip and tell them how much we love everything about the gift, trip, or house decor. This kind of ogling is especially easy with Facebook.

But the truth is, our love isn't always sincere. Sometimes we only "love" this friend because we desire to be like them. This isn't real love at all. This is idolizing a friend. We put them on a pedestal, hoping to be like this friend one day or have the things they do. We are not a true friend.

When it turns out we aren't like that friend, when we don't get that raise, when our husband doesn't get that new job with business perks and a nice salary, then we're jealous because we don't have what our friends do. We're jealous because we'll have to skip out on the fancy dinner, the matching BMW's, the trips abroad.

We don't have what they do, and we deserve is just as much, right?

Our culture tells us because we were born American, we are inherently entitled to certain blessings and small fortunes. But our culture is wrong.

This particular issue is a challenge for me because Tyler and I are still in the beginning of building our marriage. We are newly weds on one hand, but on the other we have an 8-year-old and hopes of more children sooner rather than later. So it's easy to look at our friends without kids, both working full-time, making plenty of money and compare ourselves. It's easy to look at our friends with plenty of kids, many years of marriage under the belt, with established lives and homes, and feel the same pangs. We're kind of in a category of our own, which has always been the case for E and Me, and now Tyler too.

But by no means are we alone. It's easy for anyone to look at others, because someone else will always have more than we do, and judge their lives.

If I find a beautiful kitchen in a magazine, I want it and love it. But if my friend actually has that kitchen from the magazine and hasn't gone into serious debt to get it, it's easy to judge the kitchen as extravagant and unnecessary. I may even go as far as to think she's wasteful with her money.

But I'm at fault here. I want to truly love my friends. I never want to judge them because I'm really jealous of what they have. The truth is, Tyler and I have more than we deserve. We are blessed and provided for daily.

A heart of jealousy and judgement is one without any thanks.

Also, see my new page, "READ" - I'm channeling the powers of the READ posters by the American Library Association. You know, the ones with famous celebrities you used to see on the walls of your library. It's my booklist for 2013. It will say what I'm currently reading, plan to read, and have already read.