There is no experience like having children...If you want the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.
Interpretation
Having children offers a unique experience of deep love and responsibility.
This quote emphasizes the profound and transformative experience of parenthood, suggesting that the responsibilities and emotional bonds formed when raising children provide a deeper understanding of love. It conveys the idea that through parenting, individuals learn to care for another human being while also discovering the depths of their own capacity for love and connection.
In practice
During a parenting workshop, this quote can be shared to underscore the joys and challenges of raising children.
People are only mean when they're threatened… and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people who have jobs in our economy are threatened, because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money a god. It is all part of this culture.
The best way to deal with that is to live in a fully conscious, compassionate, loving way. Don't wait until you're on your deathbed to recognize that this is the only way to live.
Now that I'm suffering, I feel closer to people who suffer more than I ever did before. The other night, on TV, I saw people in Bosnia running across the street, getting fired upon, killed, innocent victims....and I just started to cry. I feel their anguish as if it were my own. I don't know any of these people. But - how can I put this? I'm almost......drawn to them.
Do the kind of things that come from the heart, When you do, you won't be dissatisfied, you won't be envious, you won't be longing for somebody else's things. On the contrary, you'll be overhelmed with what comes back
It’s natural to die. The fact that we make such a big hullabaloo over it is all because we don’t see ourselves as part of nature. We think because we’re human we’re something above nature.
When you look at it that way, you can see how absurd it is that we individualize ourselves with our fences and hoarded possessions.
Parents remain our touchstones, fellow travelers, even after death. They are both missing and present.
He looked into the crowd for approval, saw his mother and father. He waved and they waved back. Smiles and Indian teeth. They were both drunk. Everything familiar and welcome. Everything beautiful.
The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven's lieutenants.
A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed on the anvil of everyday living.
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
I have two younger brothers, and I know my parents have spoken to them about driving and interacting with police. They didn't have those conversations with me, but they did have conversations about being exceptional black people.
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