How often do you look at yourself in the mirror? Not just how your hair looks, or to shave or do some other grooming habit, but look yourself in the eye and see who is looking back. This is a daunting thing to do because you may see something you didn’t expect, darkness. Each person born into existence has been taken with two choices, dark or light. You may argue against this simplistic idea, but look at yourself honestly, and you will see it reflected in you, the potential for both darkness and light. What ultimately wins in your life is totally up to you and the choices you pursue.

Equal Parts Exist In You

All people contain the ability to love deeply, show compassion, help their fellow man, and give entirely to virtual strangers. There is also the capacity to be petty, mean-spirited, selfish, and discriminatory without too much coaxing. I watch this each day in the faces of others and some days in my reflection.

This dichotomy exists in all of us; at some point, the dark side has shown its face. Looking at yourself, you have seen and felt this before if you are honest. We are doomed to spend our lives with these two elements fighting for our attention, thoughts, emotions, and behavior dictating. If you fail to see this is true, you will be subject to some rude awakening. They will often be brought on by people who are choosing the darkness, and these experiences will hurt you and change your life path. Sometimes we need the hard slap of coldness to move us in a direction we need to go. Even though darkness exists, golden rules all and, in the end, destroy the dark.

Favorite Dark Side Activities

Separation is the place where one’s dark side can take control of their behaviors. Any time you put yourself on one side and somebody else on the other, you are in danger of dark side activity.

This is because when you label someone like them, or different from you,  or not like you, subconsciously, you permit yourself to discriminate, take advantage, and even commit violence against another human being. Notice this in society as people are labeled immigrants, Muslims, terrorists, illegals, or any other category. This happens to justify behavior, attitude, or action.

This is the real power that many government officials and the national media use to justify many policies that can’t be classified as any other thing but dark. Separation leads to the justification of dislike and even hatred and can also influence the seemingly most beautiful people to accept others’ poor actions.

Separation of race, religion, economics, sexual orientation, or region of the world one comes from is nothing but a pretext for discrimination. All you have to do is look around you and see separations. Recently economic divides have been convenient dividers.

Justifying cutting benefits to people with few resources. The dark side explains this quickly, “They should get a job.” “Why are we paying for them to sit around all day and do nothing.” We are all in this together, but we forget this very quickly.

As a rule, when you talk about people like us, those, or we, you are probably separating and ready to perpetrate or accept others’ poor treatment. Or, at the very least, become taking of the discrimination of others.

Love Is the Answer

Of course, the light is love, which is always good and right. The solution to dark side behaviors is the use of love, and the best part is that you have one hundred percent control over how much love you share daily. With every interaction you have and every thought that you entertain.

Every time you see someone, you have the opportunity to treat them with love or indifference and separation. Treating someone with passion does not mean that you have to give away all of your money or do anything complicated; in fact, it is the easiest. Just be present and appreciate that every person is a valuable, beautiful soul with unlimited potential.

This can be directly talking to one person or sharing a friendly smile with another, but it mostly means avoiding separations. If you divide every belief with others, you won’t, and you can’t. It is just impossible.

You can recognize their humanity and accept them for their changes. We are all human beings living on this planet, just trying to do the best we can with the gifts and circumstances that life has given us. That is it.

Doing this and being aware of it will change the lives of the people you come in contact with and your life. You are on the right track when you think thoughts like, “We are all in this together.” “Our existence on this planet is better together.”

Putting everyone into the same category, including yourself, avoids separation and removes the unwritten right people feel to discriminate or hate because someone is just a little bit different.

Embrace Your Light, Understand your Darkness

So the next time you look at yourself in the mirror, look deep inside yourself and recognize these two distinct characters. There is equal ability to love and hate; everyone has it, and understanding the darkness in ourselves won’t let it win over your actions but will give you the power to choose the light.

It is important to remember that everyone matters in the trip we call life. From people who love and support you to those you have felt have wronged you in any way, if you neglect to see how your love and acceptance of everyone, you are participating in separation, closing in on hate, and preparing the way for discrimination or violence.

Love is always the answer; if you can embrace this practice, your life will inevitably change for the better.