It’s Not Enough to Love Yourself

You Must Give it Too

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash

There is no shortage of blog posts, Instagram inspirational captions and grandparents to tell you that you are loveable just the way you are and that you should value and love yourself. Hell, even I’ve said it a couple times in posts such as these.

But a lot of people fear loving themselves because they think that to love yourself is conceited. As most of us know, this isn’t true but we all know people who are very full of themselves and conceited. They think they’re God’s gift to humanity — and in a way they’re right — but we’re all gifts. It’s not that some people have the potential to be gifts and others don’t.

The notion that one is superior to anyone else might be confused to be “too self-loving” but love is never something that is bottled up inside for us to just feel good about ourselves and hold above others. Love is meant to be expressed and shared.

For example, someone may fail at landing a coveted contract but they don’t beat themselves up for it. They tell others, “Well, I gave it my best shot and that’s all that matters.” Okay, that sounds loving. But if someone else gets it and they turn their noses up at them, this isn’t a person that loves themselves. This is someone wrapped in egotistical. Their self-talk might’ve sounded positive, but it was a mask to hide…