Compassion

It's amazing the things that will invoke in you a feeling of compassion, unexpectedly doors will open that originally you would have never thought to look inside. When you do look inside your eyes are opened to perspectives you didn't know existed. In the year since I have moved to Salt Lake City my life has been changed in ways I would have never expected before, and my eyes have been opened to concepts that I had never contemplated. I don't savor every memory I have made here, but I know every one of them can build me making me stronger for my future, even the things that I wish I could lock away. I have made decisions I haven't been proud of and I have made others that I know I will be grateful for, for the rest of my life.
But one of the greatest lessons I have learned is compassion, the desire to understand those who seem impossible to understand. I have learned to try to see that everyone does things for a reason, and chances are the reasons are more noble that we may first assume.
Humans are born with innate desire to love, and almost every persons actions are built in some way or another around that desire. When people lash out usually it's because they have been denied of that which is most essential to their life: Love. I don't know exactly what I have blind to all this time, but I have realized just how much people need to be loved, and how much people need to be excepted and supported, sometimes all people need is one person to believe in them for them to take flight.
I have also learned however that you should never allow yourself to be controlled or manipulated because you think that will show someone that they are cared for and loved. You never have to do that! You are less able to love yourself and in turn love others when you are controlled by others and circumstances. Love is not love unless it is accompanied by freedom, becoming a slave to someone else's desires is never a sign of love, it's a sign of selfishness.
It's hard finding a balance and as beings of passion we more often than not tend to go to the extremes in what we do. But I am truly understanding that it is by the small and simple things that great things are brought to pass. It is through small and simple acts that the greatest signs of love are reflected. In time I know our thoughts become our actions and I hope that regardless of my past, my thoughts will become the strength behind my actions.