The Optimal Optimist is a blogger whose posts I have been reading lately.  So far I have enjoyed her blog and like that it is a blog focused around positivity.  A few days ago she wrote a post titled, Paddle Your Own Canoe.  The whole post was written around a cute little phrase “Love many, trust few,  and learn to paddle your own canoe.”  She writes about how the three sections of this phrase represent three factors of finding true happiness.

When I first sat down to write a response to her post, it was going to be full of reasons why I disagreed with her.  After trying this approach three different times, I finally had to admit that the more I read what she wrote, the more I agreed with it.   I think my problem was my own state of mind at the time.  I was prepared to disagree with her before I even read her post.  It had to do with the first part of the phrase.  “Love Many”

In fact, I was so prepared to disagree with her that I missed her whole take on what “Love Many” meant.  I do not love easily.  Love takes trust, and still being on this side of being a cynical person, I rarely find people I can love.  I am still struggling with that whole concept of loving myself.

When I first read her post, I assumed that what I was going to read would be another of what I call fluffy bunny, lets all hug everyone, and love everyone posts.  Instead she was advocating that not only should we show love to our family,  we should also show love to the other people in our lives that deserve it.  Not a willy nilly love fest, but showing and spreading love to people we already have in our lives and trust.  People that are special to us.

She also said that the more love we put out there, the more we would get in return.  She is absolutely right as far as I am concerned.  In my own experiences, I can say that the more I show love, the more my family and friends are comfortable showing love to me.  Like hugging.  I hate hugging.  It invades my personal space.  However, people in my family value hugging.  For them it is an outward sign of affection.  The last time my parents were in town, I actually hugged them without them having to hint around they wanted a hug. Not only do I think it made them feel good, but it made me feel good when they hugged back. 

I think it is interesting that I mentioned trust when I was writing about the first part of the phrase, because the second part of the phrase is “Trust Few”.  Now how could I think that the “Love Many” part would have anything to do with a fluffy bunny love fest?  See how stuck I was in my preconceived opinions?

The Optimal Optimist talks about a “Circle Of Trust”.  We can rely on those people in our “Circle Of Trust”, but we need to be careful about who we extend an invitation to join that “Circle Of Trust” to.  Not everyone will have our best intentions in mind.

So far what she had to say about the first and second parts of the phrase go right to the heart of what I think about the same topics.  It only took me reading those parts about four times to get over myself and see that.

The last part, “Learn To Paddle Your Own Canoe”.  This is the one part that I did not mess up on.  I agree with her that it is the most important part.  Learning to be ourselves.  I want to take it a step further and say that I also think it means learning how to love ourselves, trusting ourselves and having confidence in ourselves.  In my opinion, it is difficult, almost impossible to be ourselves if we do not have the other qualities to go along with it.

She asked that the readers of her post take that day to think about that phrase.  Love Many, Trust Few, Learn To Paddle Your Own Canoe.”  I took two days.  I am so glad I did.

By taking a couple of days to think about what she wrote, I believe I got more out of her post than she had in mind for people to take away from it.  I learned that I really need to let go of some preconceived opinions about things.  I am not doing myself or other people justice by forming an opinion before I carefully look something over. 

I also decided that I really need to show the people in my life, who really deserve it, more love.  I realize that I do not have to do anything elaborate or spectacular but just something to let them know that I love them. 

Do you think you need to show more love to the deserving people in your life?  How about loving yourself, do you need to do more of that?

Are you like me and are quick to form opinions without having all the information?  If so, is it something that you feel needs to be changed about yourself, or are you OK with it.