Part of being human is having the power to choose. And it’s this freedom of choice that can be one of the greatest frustrations in loving someone else.
Even though we might care about them and have their best interests at heart, they still get to choose what they’re going to do—even if it will end up harming them in the long run—and there’s nothing we can do to change that.
It can be painful, and deeply frustrating, to see the course they’re on, and know that we can’t make their decision for them. We can try to convince them to turn around, or to take a different path, but ultimately they have to make that choice.
But ultimately we’re not responsible for the choices they make–we’re responsible for the choices we make. Will we choose to love them even if they don’t do so in return? Will we choose to seek their good, even when they don’t seem to care?
How we answer these questions will affect the kind of person we become in the long run—and that’s something we do have a choice in.