Monday Motivator: Unconditional Love
By Scott Westerman
Listen to an audio version of this message.
“I’ve seen you at your best and at your worst, and I love you anyway.”
I’ve had a lot of time to write and research these last few days. Colleen’s cancer came back.
It’s a small tumor. The doc got it all without having to damage anything too important. Our fingers are crossed that this will be our last encounter with the enemy.
As I write this, she’s sleeping, plugged into IVs, healing. We’ve been documenting the adventure on her personal blog and last night I made a list of how we have defined our love these past 35 years.
All of this got me to thinking about unconditional love. Everybody talks about it, but what is it?
Stephen Kendrick, author of “The Love Dare“, writes, “The only way love can last a lifetime is if it’s unconditional. The truth is this: love is not determined by the one being loved but rather by the one choosing to love.”
That’s powerful. We all need attention, affection, affirmation, but it will only come from those who choose to give it to us.
Love includes disappointment. People who should be caring about us will hurt us. Love doesn’t overlook pain, anger or misbehavior. It’s ok to say, “You hurt me.” “I’m mad at you.” or “What you did was not appropriate.”
Philosopher Lori Chidori Phillips admits, “Soul mates aren’t perfect people. They can come into your life and provide polar emotional experiences from intense love to intense pain. Growth comes from both. And a soul mate helps you grow. It isn’t just ‘…and they lived happily ever after’ but ‘…and they lived!’”
Unconditional love can sometimes mean letting go, helping someone you care about break out of your orbit to discover their own galaxy.
At it’s core, the word “unconditional” gives us the secret: Love without condition; without expecting anything in return. This can be a hard concept to digest, especially in a world where payment for services rendered is an expectation.
Here’s how some smart people put it:
Oscar Wilde: “To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.”
Antoine de Saint – Exupéry: “True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.”
Leo Buscaglia: “Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.”
The magic of unconditional love is in it’s reflection. Your network grows to the extent that you can help other people without expecting them to do something for you. In most cases, healthy human beings with properly wired brains will eventually give you exactly what you give them.
The last eight words words of Matthew 7:7 hold the secret, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. What you do will impact what you get. Action – Reaction. Cause – Effect.
But you can’t expect a return, even as you have faith that it will come to pass.
And what if it doesn’t reflect back? In the words of Paul McCartney, “Let it be.” We ultimately will attract what we need IF we model the behavior. But it might not come from the person we want it from. All kids don’t grow up to be perfect. That person you thought would love you back might not. We sometimes have to fire the rock star we thought we hired. Let it go. Learn from it. Move on.
Unconditional love is caring enough about someone to allow them to become what they choose to be. If they turn out to be a reflection of the good things you try to radiate, great! If they end up unhappy, it’s not your fault.
Take the words of Mother Theresa with you this week and try to incorporate them into the relationships that are the most important to you: “Intense love does not measure, it just gives.”
And watch what happens.
Have a great week!
Feedback is always welcome to Scott@Spartanology.com
Get the Monday Motivator delivered to your emailbox.
The Spartan Life 2 is available now in both paperback and digital formats!
What Love Is
By Scott and Colleen Westerman
When Colleen’s cancer came back, we had a lot of time together in the hospital. We’ve read that love is one of the strongest healing forces in the world. So we decided to come up with our definition of “What Love Is”.
Love is being 16, realizing that there is a 5 year age difference between the two of you, and building a relationship anyway. A relationship is just as strong and steadfast 35 years later as it was when you first realized you were in love.
Love is a sharing a circle of close friends who are generous, faithful and attentive.
Love is deciding that raising a healthy family came before career aspirations and discovering that by doing so, both of your careers became more rewarding than you could have ever realized.
Love is carrying your tears on one another’s shoulders and laughing so hard together that your nose runs.
Love is beginning and ending every day by saying, “I love you, no matter what.” Even when you are royally pissed off.
Love is sending your baby daughter, who is just learning how to mimic everything you say, into daddy’s home office to tell him to “eat my shorts”, followed by daddy sending her right back to tell you, “daddy says you are a booger.”
Love is listening to your 3 year old son sing “Away in a Manger”.
Love is being broke, but feeling rich when the two of you tuck your kids into bed every night.
Love is tickling one another until someone says, “stop please”.
Love is sitting next to one another and holding hands at every concert, play and assembly your kids ever had.
Love is letting your wife taunt the ref and being willing to risk your son’s team getting a technical foul in the process.
Love is letting your husband fly every kind of airplane and go skydiving with the Army Golden Knights even though you know if something goes wrong the life insurance won’t pay out.
Love is standing together to demand the best education and best health care for your family, even if it means working two jobs.
Love is the four of you drinking lots and lots of root beer and then recording your own rendition of Alfred E. Newman’s “It’s a Gas!”
Love is seeing your wife find a career passion and watching her revel in it.
Love is watching your husband inspire his team to rediscover their self esteem and rise to the top.
Love is being side by side, watching your children graduate and get married.
Love is living in 13 houses over 3 decades and making each one a home.
Love is preserving date night every single week and never forgetting to do the things you did to win your spouse in the first place.
Love is discovering you have cancer and telling your husband to start his new job anyway.
Love is thinking that your wife is just as beautiful when the chemo makes all her hair fall out.
Love is realizing what “In sickness and in health” really means and sticking around.
Love is adopting amazing kids who aren’t your biological children, and teaching them what love is by your example.
Love is your combined sigh of relief when you are told that you are in remission.
Love is being present when your grandchild is born and seeing your spouse’s face in their smile.
Love is being told your cancer is back and believing that the two of you can beat it again, together.
Love is a lifetime of shared experiences that continually redefines what love is.
Love is deciding that whatever cards fate deals, you will live your days to the fullest, as two individual souls who have have always believed that life has been a much better ride because you loved one another.
Monday Motivator: The Important Moments
By Scott Westerman
UPDATED: 11:18PM
Scott’s Note: This is a story that is being shared across the web this week. Snopes confirms it’s authenticity and provided a powerful postscript, which I’ve included here. It totally re-centered me on what’s important. Hope it does the same for you. (more…)
To the MSU Class of 2012
By Scott Westerman
Listen to an audio version of this message.
The greatest joy I associate with my work as the head servant for the MSU Alumni Association is the many opportunities I have to get to know our students.
We may exalt the more familiar names who paint Spartan pride on the front pages of our sports sections. But the true essence of what Michigan State University is all about are the other 46,000 seekers; Kids who come here to find a passion, to find themselves and to become Spartans in the process. (more…)
What Spartans Do
Listen to the audio version of this message.
It was a scene out of a movie and it happened in the shadow of Hollywood.
I was in LA for a full weekend of alumni activity, including the chance to spend some time with prospective Spartans at a welcome party in the home of one of our own. (more…)
Monday Motivator: Metrics
By Scott Westerman
“What’s measured improves” Peter F. Drucker
How do we know when we are doing a good job? (more…)
Monday Motivator: Compliments
By Scott Westerman
“I can live for two months on a good compliment.” – Mark Twain
There are too many complaints and too few compliments in today’s world. Nothing brightens someone’s day like an appreciative word. (more…)
Monday Motivator: Stop and Start
Stop, Start, Continue.. This is the sometimes painful, but nearly always productive process of listing those behaviors we need to initiate, amplify or throw in the trash. This week, another guest post from the proprietors of Marc and Angel Hack Life. They attack the concept head on. Discover their “Practical Tips for Productive Living” at MarcAndAngel.com
As Maria Robinson once said, “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” Nothing could be closer to the truth. But before you can begin this process of transformation you have to stop doing the things that have been holding you back.
Here are some ideas to get you started: (more…)
Your Personal Brand: Creating it, Selling it and Living it
My presentation to MSU’s Broad College of Business on Personal Branding, distilled to 3:13 by Russ White.
The Spartan Life 2
