I’m doing a meditation challenge and today my homework was to write different things I loved about myself. Due to -well, life- I’m at a moment where it’s easier to find the things I hate (sounds too harsh…i’ll use dislike) about myself than those I love. But as I made the effort to write them down, it dawn upon me that those things that I dislike about myself at the moment are the same things I am also grateful for and love about myself. My ability to be empathetic, to forgive, to be in touch with my emotions, to feel. All these are qualities I carry with pride and at the same time are the reasons that cause me pain. So I sit with them, angry about them today but knowing I’ve been and will be grateful for them again. It’s funny, this dichotomy of life…and in a way it proves to me how love and hate are the same emotion, on different ends of the scales. Because, don’t we hate something when it hurts? And it can only hurt us if we cared, if it mattered, if we loved.