Like an echo

A once famous composer and pianist said “I have found that if you love life, life will love you back,” and he could never have said it any better. Life treats us the same way we treat life. How can we expect a life full of joy and happiness when our lives are buried in sadness and grief? If we want other people to treat us fairly then let’s start to treat people nicely.

Here is another good old tale taken from Fr. Frank Mihalic’s compilation of stories:

A little boy came running excitedly to his mother saying, “Mom, there is a boy out there in the woods who is mocking me. Everything I say, he says after me. If I say, ‘Hello,’ he says, ‘Hello.’

When I say, ‘Who are you?’ he says, ‘Who are you?’ I say, ‘What is your name?’ and he also says, ‘What is your name?’

“So I got mad and jumped over the fence and went into the woods to find him. But he wasn’t anywhere. So I yelled, ‘I’ll punch you in the nose.’ And he said the very same thing, exactly as I had said it.’

The boy’s mother told him, “That is only an echo answering you, son. If you had said, ‘I love you,’ it would have said the same to you.”

There is a similar story about a dog that went into a room full of mirrors. He eventually died of exhaustion trying to fight his mirrored “enemies.” If he had only wagged his tail once, he would have had all of them wagging their tails in friendship.

Life is like an echo or a mirror: we get out of it what we put in.

So let's love life so it will love us back.