In the madness and mayhem of modern life, where every one seems committed to an endless search for their approval and esteem of peers, of social media ‘likes’, gratification, cudos, we have to remember that we are ‘good enough’ as our own person, the person we love.
Most of us are motivated deep down by a sense of insufficiency, a need to be better, stronger, faster, to work harder, to be more committed, more kind, more self sufficient, more successful.
We are driven by a sense that we are not, as we are ‘enough’
A short poem by Derek Wallcott (1930 – 2017), is like a declaration of unconditional love.
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
