Loving yourself means being open-minded, but also hardening yourself enough to actually stand on your own two feet.
We’ve all been exposed to this particular piece of advice in one way or another. In fact, you can find this phrase practically plastered on all sorts of media. Love yourself. It’s on blogs, books, poems, songs, movies, and speeches everywhere. You have to love yourself. But what does it really mean to love yourself? And why is it so important for you to do so? Do people even really understand what the implications of loving one’s self are? But it would be a disservice to you, the reader, to go and just simplify the idea of loving yourself. Because the truth is, it’s a very complex idea. Of course, one would assume that naturally, we all love ourselves.
Otherwise, we wouldn’t find the joy and motivation to want to go on living in this world, right? But it’s so much more than that. There are so many layers to loving yourself that you really need to grasp. Loving yourself means being open-minded, but also hardening yourself enough to actually stand on your own two feet. Loving yourself means being able to believe in your own convictions no matter how many detractors or dissenters there may be in your life. You have to be able to believe in yourself even when others are telling you that you’re not worthy; that you’re not good enough.
Loving yourself means being able to have selective hearing to be able to shut out the rational criticisms of others and give in to the delusional beliefs that you have for yourself. Loving yourself means believing in your own power to make a revolutionary mark on this world even when chances are that you won’t even make a dent. Loving yourself means actually being able to glance at yourself in the mirror and to like what you see. It’s about focusing all of your energy into maximizing whatever potential you know you have inside of you. It’s about you believing that you have what it takes to actually step outside of your comfort zone and prove everyone else wrong.
It’s about you thinking that you have what it takes to swim upstream through the rough current of life. It’s about you believing in the plan that you set for yourself; and also believing in your ability to adapt if things don’t go according to plan. Loving yourself means that you always make sure that you live a life of pride, humility, poise, grace, class, and contentment. That’s what loving yourself really means. That’s what it really looks like to have a life where self-love and confidence is consistently prevalent. But why is it important to live a life of this manner? Yes, you have a good idea of what it looks like to have a life where you love yourself; but why is it so important to love yourself in the first place?
Well, if you don’t love yourself, you generally take on a very pessimistic aura about yourself; you will breed unhappiness on yourself and on the people around you. If you refuse to excuse yourself from your own faults and shortcomings, you will carry with you the kind of bitterness and insecurity that will prevent you from really opening yourself up to other people. If you refuse to work hard and earn the things that you want most in life, you will deprive yourself of the opportunity to find a love that you’re really worthy of. If you don’t know how to see the good in any bad situation, then you will essentially be building a life of bad memories and unlearned lessons for yourself.
If you refuse to acknowledge the weight and validity of your own emotions, then you would have no problems disregarding the feelings of the people around you as well; you would end up alienating yourself from the rest of the world. And people who are alone are at their weakest. If you only ever really focus on your flaws and imperfections, then you also fail to notice the good qualities that can be found in others. If you are too ashamed of just being yourself, then you will never really ever learn to just accept someone else for who they are.
If you can’t even console yourself during your most trying and vulnerable moments, then how will other people ever really grow to rely on you? If you judge yourself a little to harshly and unreasonably, then there’s no stopping you from judging others in the same unreasonable manner. If you refuse to believe in your ability to actually change who you are for the better, then you would never believe in the capacity of others to change as well. If you just completely give up on the idea of loving yourself, then you are essentially giving other people the permission to do the same.
