I share to you an excerpt taken from one of my favorite books as a child. It brings me a stark realization on how to become REAL.
“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
― Margery Williams Bianco, The Velveteen Rabbit
source
I think of all the many ways by which a person becomes REAL in distinct faces.
A parent who sacrifices late nights and denies oneself from rest sometimes just to care for the children,
A lover is subdued by devotion causing him/her to have character transformation for the love of someone,
A friend pardons a betrayer forgiving him/her as if finding a best friend for the first time,
A father tightly hugs a son who asks forgiveness after stealing from him a great amount of money, running away and spending it frivolously,
A lady smiles at the mirror pleased with gratefulness for the shape of her body, color of her skin and figure she embodies,
A teen unafraid to admit he gets scared to go to school because he is told he is too small for his grade level,
A child traverses the hills, without footwear, a five-kilometer distance from home to school and vice versa,
A fisherman braving the dangers of the sea only to bring home food for his family.
We seem to have never existed if we become indifferent to life.
Only when we allow ourselves to love, to be loved and in the process to get hurt do we become alive and real in the short stretch of time we are given.
Thanks for reading! 📕 🙂
@lemonchum there are happy and not so happy times in life so enjoy every bit of it anyway!
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such a wonderful post. the lesson applies to so much of life. and i like how becoming real is a long process, so takes consistent effort and not just some instant flash.
@chinito thanks! yeah, it is a process; spring comes at the right time :)
True that various ways to be real and show real love.
Thanks, @zararina!
Its a good lesson to understand ...thus really goes to the heart of the differances of people
@rloriaux thanks!
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Being real, if you let the natural instinct of your personal being flow through your actions.