We forget some of the oldest medicines we have are love and compassion, and they can be deployed by everyone.
Interpretation
Love and compassion are powerful healing tools that everyone can use.
In this quote, Vivek Murthy highlights the importance of love and compassion as fundamental remedies for many of life's ailments. He suggests that these profound, yet often overlooked, qualities are accessible to all, promoting healing and well-being within individuals and communities alike.
In practice
In a speech about mental health awareness, this quote could inspire a focus on love and compassion as key strategies in care.
I think sometimes in the focus on deep friendships and on romantic relationships, we can lose sight of how important the small connections we make are with strangers and with people that we may encounter for just a few seconds or a few minutes, whether it's the barista at our coffee shop or the stranger next to us on the subway.
Without strong communities, we cannot pull together during times of hardship. Our diversity turns from a source of strength to a source of conflict.
One of the things that happens in our regular lives is that when we're in moments of pain or feeling alone, we may hesitate to reach out to others because we may think - they're not going through the same experiences I am.
There's a tremendous sense of shame that people who are lonely feel. I say that as someone who felt ashamed of being lonely as a child and even at points during adulthood.
Our health care workers are the heroes of the Covid-19 response.
What you quickly realize once you commit to getting more sleep is it can increase your productivity, it can improve your mood. And that doesn't just help you at work, but it helps you be the kind of person you want to be with your family and your friends and that's ultimately what matters most.
You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.
It never leaves, not with someone we love. Their presence burns too vivid in our memories. Happen that is as it should be, for otherwise we would too easy forget.
It's your unlimited power to care and to love that can make the biggest difference in the quality of your life.
Clouds pass and disperse. Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart?
Every time you make a choice that expresses respect for life, you bring a little more love in your body, into your family, into our society, and into a world that is calling out for this blessing.
I want to love the things as no one has thought to love them.
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