Sometimes you have to draw the line. Sometimes you have to say no. You want to be a loving person. Just the same, sometimes you have to say no. Sometimes you are not in someone’s good graces. You cannot keep appeasing. Loving and appeasing are not the same thing.

You can love without further personal investment. Of course, you would love everyone to love you and appreciate you, and yet everyone doesn’t always seem to want to be with you. Then love from afar. Bless rather than interact. Giving love is not meant to be a performance or a penance. You are not here on Earth to stretch the limits of your endurance.

There are situations where you must interact with someone. In this case, you can break through boundaries. You find a way. You have done so. Often enough, you do come to care about someone you used to turn away from. Sometimes you become not just friends, but very good friends.

When someone is difficult for you, you do not have to engage with him or her. You do not have to break a world’s record.

Do you grasp what I am saying? Does it sound as though I am giving you mixed messages?

You do not have to have the patience of a saint in every circumstance.

You don’t have to go to every party. You do not need to make everyone your best friend. Of course, be considerate to others. Also be considerate to yourself.

When something is not your cup of tea, you don’t have to keep drinking it. You can be honest. You don’t have to go out of your way to drink more than your fill.

Bear no grudges, no hard feelings, yet you can get up from the table.

If you are in a movie theater, and the movie isn’t to your liking, you don’t have to stay there. You certainly don’t have to keep going back to that movie.

You can love yourself as well. Your love isn’t meant to be only for others. Your love is not meant to be by hook or by crook. Of course, you don’t have to be hasty.

When you correspond with someone, for instance, and they are courteous one moment and rude another, are you under some obligation to write back? It comes down to this, beloveds. It is not loving of you to have no will of your own. You are also entitled to your own discretion.

I am not speaking of close personal relationships now. I am speaking of casual associations. You do not have all day to spend where your heart is not. You are not meant to spend your life in sufferance. You are meant to spend your life in joy.

It comes to this: You do not have to give a pound of flesh in order to keep yourself in your own good graces. Give life and everyone a chance, yet remember always that you are not obliged to put in your time as a sacrifice. How is it loving to sacrifice?

What do you owe to a stranger who seems to give you grief? Sometimes you do have to draw a line. This is a line with yourself, beloveds. You do not pretend your heart away. Your feelings count for something. You do not give yourself away with a grimace. Give with joy. And if you cannot give with joy in a certain circumstance, then you have the choice to give it up. You are not meant to be an indentured servant. You are not to neglect your own heart. You are to listen to your own heart as well as another’s. Compassion does not mean to toss away your own well-being. You are free to represent yourself. In life, you do not have to atone.