"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them"

This quote by Thomas Merton speaks with the significance of enabling those we enjoy to be their real selves. It is easy to fall into the trap of wishing to form our liked ones into the image of what we desire them to be, however this is not real love. True love is accepting and embracing the individual for who they are, defects and all. It is acknowledging that we can not alter them, which we ought to not attempt to. We must like them for who they are, not for who we desire them to be. We need to not be looking for a reflection of ourselves in them, however rather, we should be trying to find the special qualities that make them who they are. Real love is unconditional and accepting, and it is just when we can let our liked ones be perfectly themselves that we can genuinely like them.