Open Your Eyes

Imagine that I walk into your home for the first time. Oddly, my eyes are closed, so as I walk I keep banging into the furniture with my legs and hips.
“Ouch!” I complain.

You suggest that I might try opening my eyes.

I continue to walk, however, knocking a glass vase to the floor, where it shatters. “Who was the idiot who put that there?” I ask.

Again you suggest that I open my eyes.

I trip on a table leg and fall to the floor, cutting my arm on the broken glass. “That really hurts,” I shout with irritation.

Understandably, you are mystified about why I would put myself—and you—through this experience, when I need only open my eyes. It seems, well, ridiculous.

And yet most of us stumble throughout life, banging against the furniture of people and circumstances, being cut by the consequences of our foolish choices, and injuring ourselves needlessly in relationships.

And all we need do is open our eyes—to see that love is the foundation of all happiness.