Honor, Values and Love

I used to think that being a good person was all about telling the truth, doing good deeds, and basically being a Boy Scout. I learned this as a young man as a real, live, honest to God, Boy Scout. I learned the words: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent. I lived these words, as best I could, my entire adult life; sometimes more successfully than others to be honest, but I did my best. I have started to think differently and I learned that values must sometimes be sacrificed on the altar of love. I have not abandoned my beliefs in any of these values, but I have grown, gained experience and, at the risk of appearing arrogant, and I admit that I can be arrogant, I have become wiser. I have gained a different kind of insight, an insight I did not have before and I hope that I have not gained it too late in life.


A good life can be lived by finding that one thing that means more than anything else in the world to you, and when you do find her, you fight for her. You risk it all. You put her in front of everything; your future, your life, all of it. Maybe the kinds of things you do for her are not so clean and honorable, and maybe they do not fit into the kind of values that I learned as a Boy Scout, but it doesn’t matter, because in your heart you know that the juice is worth the squeeze. That is what moral fiber is all about, and that my friends is what love is all about.

Love is all about sacrificing, but the sacrifice brings you joy and pleasure and the kind of satisfaction that doing something for someone you love can only bring. It is the sacrifice that does not require a return and is given as a gift with no expectations. I was once told that a successful relationship has two people in it giving more than 100%. If two people are giving 100%, then the relationship can never fail, for when one, for whatever reason, cannot give that more than 100%, there is always enough left over to make the relationship keep working.

I have learned that often you cannot be all the things I learned to be in my youth all at the same time. Sometimes you cannot be trustworthy and still be kind. You cannot always tell the truth because you will hurt someone. Sometimes you cannot be obedient and be loyal, because you have been asked by someone to do something that is wrong. Sometimes you cannot be cheerful in the face of adversity or the suffering of another, especially the one you love. And sometimes, it is an act of kindness not to be helpful, for the act of kindness can create dependence.

Thinking about love makes me think about what I would do for someone I truly loved and I have learned that, for myself, it is just about anything. I would steal to feed them, kill to save them, lie to protect them and spend all I had to make them happy, but first I would try all within my power to make sure that it is never necessary to do any of these things for them and, in a perfect world, they would never make me do any of them.