Our lives are experimental to say the least. We often get caught in the loop of love at first(or few) sights,loving every bit of it until increasing drama screeching and crying at the top of our voices catches up on us. Just pretending to be the mature one until we break up.
Throughout the process,we keep on questioning our own self worth: was I not enough for him? Am I just a play tool for everyone? How much to do I give to receive? Why do I always end up getting hurt?
Soon, we spiral out of control, giving into numberous vices and becoming our demons.WHY?
Because none of us have learnt the art of self love.
Yes, that’s a very real concept. It’s philosophical, true, but it’s universal and applicable in all situations.
It’s indeed a ringing truth : we don’t love ourselves.
We only like the idea of ourselves: the way we dress, the way we care, the way we hurt, the way we forgive, the way we hate, the way we study, the way we do our jobs….. We don’t love it.
Difference?
We infatuate ourselves with some alternate version of ourselves, which, let alone being our true self, is also subject to a number of opinions. For instance, if someone tells you that you don’t look good in a particular dress, more often than not you change it. And if that someone happens to be someone very close and loved by you, you definitely change it. But there would always be a small voice inside you saying that no dear you do look good, you just mute it and let others influence the way you look.That voice ,my friend, is your voice. It’s fighting for your attention but end up giving it’s share of love to the other individual.That’s how you like and hurt.
Now tell me, if you were to love yourself, would you have given even a speck of your time and spirit to someone who only snowballs opinions on you? Wouldn’t you be picky to let someone in? Wouldn’t you be the accurate judge of someone’s love, trust and care for you?
You always look for sacrificial love, the one romanticized in novels and movies. Your brain has been programmed into thinking that you definitely need someone else to spice up your life, to give you all the physical and non-physical pleasures. But, you just have to look within to find that person. That person is you.
Making yourself the significant other in your life. Loving yourself so much that other’s hate or ill-feelings cannot penetrate. Keeping your walls high so that the exact person who deserves this lovely you will get you.
We accept the love we think we deserve.-Perks of Being a Wallflower
But don’t mistake this self love for arrogance or any of the kind. Because arrogance is negative, it’s not just approval of yourself but thinking yourself to be superior than others. It’s definitely not loving yourself, because with love, you accept someone’s flaws and then,and then only give rising high potential to their positives.
People would, infact, come up with other points like all of this self love concept is farce and that after they achieve a certain sense of achievement, they’ll be able to love right. Ex, people marrying after getting jobs. Well, to this I can only say that a successful relationship/marriage doesn’t always mean a happy one. Ask the people around you, just how many of them have settled themselves in okay relationships and ways of life? I would say, all but the ones who have loved themselves prior to selecting the perfect partner for them. They know who they have let in: a person who is totally like the person who has loved them before (you guessed it right, it’s them). Other people choose partners, maybe the best of the lot, but missing with some or the other aspect: a little less care, a little less love than the potential love they’d be receiving. Why? Because they do not know to what extent they can love themselves (they are the ones who just like the way they are) and settle into okayish relationships. Somewhere they find their wants answered but their needs remain gaping and unanswered.
That’s how they fail.
And that’s how we should all learn. Practicing self love with things as simple as reading your favorite book, wearing your favorite dress to give you a “feel-good” factor about yourself to something as complicated as meditation and stepping out of our comfort zone to become the best version of ourselves is something we should all strive for.
“Ever loved someone so much,you would do anything for them? Yeah, well, make that person you and do whatever the hell you want.”- Harvey Specter
And then just wait patiently and not desperately for *the guy*, who’s round the corner.
