How many likes did I get?

I just uploaded few photographs on my social media profile from a recent trip, after a long spell of struggle. What would happen next? Aren’t we all guilty of checking our profile/ post time and again, to see how many likes and comments we got?

Oh! its so satisfying to see..

Looking beautiful!

Gorgeous!

What a beautiful pic?

You people look younger than ever?

Hey! Nice place..

Looking cool dude!

and what not!

The world percieves us living the most lavish and joyful life and the posts hide all our sorrows. Our online social circle notices and celebrates the photos of trips and parties with triumph and joy.

Something to ponder upon is, how many of these Facebook Instagram friends noticed you when you didn’t post anything in last 3 years? When you were fighting an illness, a job hunt, loss of a dear one, a financial crisis and may be something even more challenging, which ones were there holding our hands. The truth is that those who called you, checked upon you and shared you pain, are the ones who love you and they are different from the ones who like you?

The difference between loving and liking is tiny yet impacts our lives differently.

Once a man asked Buddha,” how do you differentiate in loving and liking. Are both same or can be referred to as belonging to different degrees of intensity of some unique kind of feeling.” Then Buddha beautifully answered, “Liking is when you pluck the flower from the garden which is most beautiful of all and loving is when you decide to never pluck that flower because it is most beautiful.” Reason for getting plucked or not, remains the same in both the cases i.e. that flower was most beautiful yet, fate of the flower was different. Liking is to own the thing which tickles every bone of your body and loving is to let the thing prosper and flourish to the maximum capacity. Likewise in life we come across so many situations where our heart throbs back and forth to decide whether to nourish a seedling or take it out as a weed.

Sometimes not being in the right place also results in getting liked instead of truly loved. Like a Vinca seedling germinating in a pot of Rubber plant is considered a weed and has to be uprooted otherwise it will take the nutrition, supposed to be given to the rubber plant. Even if liked, Vinca seedling has to be uprooted for the welfare of both the plants. Putting this Vinca seedling in another pot is a choice that differentiates between being loved and liked.

Same is the case of delicate human relationships and have to be dealt with patience. Some relations are just liked and some are loved which are cherished throughout the life.

My dear Friends,