13 May But I’m a peach…
In Love class one night when a girl said, “I know why I’m so despairing all the time. It’s because I want to be loved by everybody, and that’s a human impossibility. I could be the most delectable, the most delicious, the most wondrous peach in the world, and I could offer it to everybody. But there are people who are allergic to peaches. Then they may want me to be a banana.” And so often we become a banana for other people who want peaches. What a messy fruit salad. Isn’t it all right to say to them, “I am so sorry I cannot be a banana. I would love to be a banana if I could for you, but I’m a peach.” And you know what? If you wait long enough, you’ll find a peach lover. And then you can live your life as a peach, and you don’t have to live your life as a banana. All the lost energy it takes to be a banana, when you’re a peach!
“To love is to risk not being loved in return.” And that’s all right too. You love to love, not to get something back, or it isn’t love.”
“To hope is to risk pain.” And, “To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, and is nothing. That person may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he or she simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, live, or love. Chained by certitudes or addictions, that person is a slave. He or she has forfeited our greatest trait, and that is our individual freedom. Only the person who risks is free.
To keep you hidden, to lose you because of self-defeating ideas is to die. Don’t let that happen. Your greatest responsibility is to become everything that you are, not only for your benefit, but for mine.
Living, Loving, and Learning
Leo F. Buscaglia
