Recently I was surfing an online forum, and I came across something that almost made me cry. Somebody had dug up an old, old post of mine and replied to it. Sometimes new users on a forum don’t look at the date on a old post, and they respond to it as if it were still relevant, so the post goes to the top of the first page in the list, even if it’s years old.
Those of you who read online forums have seen this happen many times, I’m sure, and so had I. But this one gave me an instant lump in the throat.
The post was called, “My Struggle.”
The desperate tone of the post stunned me. I couldn’t believe it was me.
In it, I had spilled my guts to everyone who would listen, over my dissatisfaction with myself and my life. I hated how I never finished anything, never got on a roll, never got good at what I wanted to be good at. I was not able to accept myself, because to accept myself meant that what I was doing (and failing to do) was fine.
Of course I wasn’t fine with it. I knew I was squandering my time and my talents, and it was killing me. I didn’t feel like I could get anywhere until I loved myself, and I didn’t feel like I could love myself until I got somewhere.
People advised me to decide to accept who I was, right now, and then I’d be free to live the life I want. I tried to do that. In fact, I did it a lot. I would get so worked up with enthusiasm about myself that I felt unstoppable. But enthusiasm fades. After a few days, the same patterns emerged again, and I was back to square one. This went on for years.
I’ve seen countless others describe the same problem. You can’t just decide to suddenly feel good about yourself. It won’t work.
I can see now the mistake people make in trying to love themselves, it’s exactly what I did. They confuse self-love with how they feel about themselves. They want the warm, comfortable feeling of being loved. They are focused on receiving love from themselves, rather than giving it.
If You Have Trouble Loving Yourself
Know this:
Love is action.
Self-love is not how you feel about yourself. It’s what you do for yourself. You can only love yourself by doing, not thinking. Execute feats of love, feats of respect, for your own benefit.
First of all, worship your body. There is nothing on this earth you will ever do that does not require its cooperation. Be nice to it. Get it into great shape. Don’t poison it, don’t abuse it, don’t neglect it. An unwillingness to worship your body will undermine any attempt to love yourself. Love it with your actions, or it won’t love you back. If you are rude to it, it will hinder you, embarrass you, and even kill you.
Learn. Endow yourself with skills, languages, abilities and arts. Developing skills is the most immediate and liberating way to shoot your self-esteem through the roof. What qualities would make you love or admire someone else? Kindness, humor, thoughtfulness, ability? Cultivate and improve those qualities.
A lot of people seem to think indulging or gratifying yourself is the same as loving yourself. Magazines and commercials say “Love yourself,” or “You’re worth it,” and then tell you to buy something or eat chocolate cake. Finding some reward and indulging in it is not love. Often it’s just abuse. Comforting yourself is not loving yourself. Beware the draw of comfort; seeking comfort is often a response to fear, not love. Don’t appease yourself, revere yourself.
Do work you love. Even if you make less money. Even if you disappoint others. Working a job for which you have no passion is betraying yourself, for eight hours a day. Nobody can love themselves while they subject themselves to forty hours of uninspiring work every week. If it isn’t practical to leave your current line of work just yet, start planning your escape now. That’s love. Do not resign a third of your life to someone else’s purpose. Dignity is worth any pay cut. If you don’t like your job, you are only getting better at being resentful.
The Respect Habit
The quality of your actions matters. Do everything with care. Pick up and put down objects as if you respect them. Don’t just drop yourself into a seat, sit down with purpose. Respect everything you buy, borrow, give away or dispose of.
Respect your time. Spend your time on things that put you into a better situation in life, on things that make you more capable, rather than on things that make you feel good for the moment. You will love yourself for doing this.
Respect other people.
Respect their skills and their virtues. Their flaws too. Respect their thoughts. Let them finish what they are saying, don’t interrupt, don’t be dismissive. Try to understand what they’re getting at. Let them be who they are. I am convinced that people are exactly as judgmental about themselves as they are about others. Find the value in others, or you will never see it in yourself. Forget the ways in which you would like other people to be different. Forgive them, and forgive yourself. Forgive yourself every time you wake up, and every time you go to bed. Forgive yourself every time you screw up.
Respect the world around you. The spectacles, the scenes, the details. Respect buildings and the people who built them. Respect businesses and the people who run them. Respect the trees. Respect the tiny, yellow-flowered weed that vehemently persists in thrusting itself up through the cracks in the sidewalk. It invests all its energy in growing, and it absolutely insists on being itself.
Love is picking up the dumbells the moment you start making excuses. Love is doing your scariest task first thing in the morning.
It’s not quitting early and treating yourself to a beer. It’s not telling yourself it’s okay for your apartment to be a pigsty.
There is a choice in every moment, between acting out of love, or out of fear. At any instant, you can stop at look at the moment, and it is clear which action is which. You will make a habit out of choosing one or the other.
You won’t be able to have respect if you do not make a habit of recognizing value. There is value in every person, object, place and moment, but you may miss it if you hold faults to be more important.
Find the endless value in the world around you, and it will be easy to find the endless value in yourself. Eventually you will no longer see a difference between the two.
Photo by DerrickT
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Hi David,
I used to struggle with the whole love yourself concept too (I think we all do but no one admits it). I felt that other people had it and I could not wonder why I didn’t have it. The more someone told me to love myself, the more I hated myself for not loving myself.
Then as life would have it, I realized that I was trying too hard to be something I wasn’t. Thus began a journey to discover me, the true me. So much stuff happened on that journey such as traveling all over the world, taking care of my mom as she dealt with terminal cancer and so on. Then one day, I realized that somehow along that crazy journey, I had made peace with myself and felt love for myself. The interesting thing is that once I felt that peace, it made it so easy to truly love other people without condition.
I think we all have to accept who we are but we don’t know who we are unless we try. The steps you mentioned are perfect!
David, this was beautiful and inspiring…as I’ve always found you to be of course.
Love is action indeed. Towards you, towards others and the Universe will give it back as deserved.
I found myself nodding my head as I was reading and vaguely remebering some of these points coming up in our conversation the other night.
Love and respect are qualities that don’t get the credit they deserve in this consumer driven, media oriented society. Treating every aspect of our lives from people to objects this way rather than just indulging empty desires could radically change this world.
I adored that you mentioned respect of growing things as being important too as ‘man’ seems to believe we are so above nature when we are all quite a part of it.
I hope to see a great deal more love and respect happen globally in my lifetime.
*hug*
Dude…I absolutely love it…
I had been treating myself like shit and basically doing the opposite of most of the things in this post for the last month or so and I just became determined to change the pattern…this post put so many of my thoughts (and some new great thoughts) into clear words….
It’s interesting when you read something you forgot you even wrote. You have a new perspective and you can see the situation so clearly, both as the person who was in it, and the person who has moved past it.
I’ve only just come upon your blog, but I’m finding that the more I read, the more I realize how similar our experiences are.
Great post.
@Frances — It was actually really creepy to read that old post. It made me remember how we’re all constantly becoming different people as time passes. I feel bad for the young man who wrote that post.
@Sumedh — Yeah, I can relate. It’s some kind of sick irony: the times in my life when I wanted to love myself the most were the times when I was the most disrespectful to myself.
@Kim — You always have a way of making me think I’m awesome. Thanks!
@Nadia — You’re right, trying to be what you aren’t will sabotage any attempts at self-love. Can you believe there was a time when I was certain my calling was to be in the Air Force? Hah!
Air Force? Wow…so why did you go with being an anthropologist? I just have to ask! I love to hear about how people find their calling. I hope you don’t mind.
I thought airplanes were cool. When I was a teenager I couldn’t think of anything cooler than the thought of flying a jet for a living. I figured that meant I was supposed to be a pilot.
At the time, I had an aversion to people in general that prevented me from being interested in them the way I am today. Now they fascinate me.
Before that I thought I wanted to be an archaeologist because I like Indiana Jones so much. I remember being disappointed when I looked at archaeology books and didn’t see any pictures of rolling boulders and exploding jeeps.
It’s all a learning process.
You are right, it is a learning process. I can relate to how you had an aversion to people. I went through that too as a teenager and now I think people are so beautiful…each in their own way. Where ever I go, I end up talking to all kinds of people and it is great to see how each of their lives has an interesting story.
It is interesting that everyone I meet who has found happiness, pretty much have similar experiences. Pretty cool.
Hi, David! I love this post, like all your posts… you have such a soothing, old-sould tone in your writing. I have always kept diariest (the pen and paper kind) so I often come across things I wrote a long time ago and, like you, feel so sorry for that younger me. Still, it’s nice to consider how far we have come.
I have an example of the Respect Habit you mentioned, “The quality of your actions matters. Do everything with care. Pick up and put down objects as if you respect them.” While I was in Costa Rica my sister in law commented that she loves to see me preparing food because it happens almost in slow motion. I carefully select the ingredients, removing any little part that isn’t as I’d like it to be. I gingerly place the items on the cutting board and slowly slice through them, making sure each piece is the way I want it. The opposite of fast food, to be sure, but it is a meditative process for me. I pour TLC into the meals I prepare and it is palpable to those who consume them.
As an aside… I am impressed with your spirit of adventure (Air Force? Indiana Jones exploding jeeps?) Awesome!
Hi Lisis,
Welcome to Raptitude. I’ve been enjoying your blog too.
Yes, cooking is an awesome way to practice the respect habit. I love the process; simple tools, colorful foods, rich smells and textures… I find it very easy to stay mindful when I cook.
I think you are right: you can taste the care and respect that is put into a meal. If more people included TLC they wouldn’t need to use MSG.
“I can see now the mistake people make in trying to love themselves, it’s exactly what I did. They confuse self-love with how they feel about themselves. They want the warm, comfortable feeling of being loved. They are focused on receiving love from themselves, rather than giving it.”
I read that paragraph 4 times until I understood what you meant. Beautifully said.
I think what you call self-love, I call self-care. To me, they are two different things. We must care (emotion) and take care (action) before we can love ourselves.
Is as does, indeed. Something great about this blog… I also like how you respond to comments as much as you do. Great, GREAT to meet you.
Peace.
@vinylart
Daniel Edlen’s last blog post..Baby News(letter)
Thank you Daniel, that’s quite a compliment, and it means a lot to me. That’s what I like to do: find people with whom my work resonates, and get to know them better. I know there are a lot of them out there, and I love it when they speak up. If I can make some people smile a thousand miles away, it means I did something awesome.
This is an awesome post. Very helpful for me. Stressing taking action is huge – something that I think most people neglect. Good intentions are great, but they get you nowhere without quality invested time and action.
Hi Mike, I’m glad you found it helpful.
Action was what was missing my whole life. I was trying to reason my way to self-acceptance, but the real problem was that my behavior was disrespectful to myself. I didn’t use my time well, and I couldn’t possibly feel good about myself until I stopped being so thoughtless with my life.
Your article was amazing. God could not have said it better. I will take it to heart and use it for inspiration. I think I might pin it to my refrigerator or somewhere I’ll see it everyday. It was just what I needed to hear. Thank you.
Wow, thanks Lee. For most articles I really have to roll up my sleeves to write, edit, and revise them. Once in a while they just come out whole, like this one, and I know that I was able to find exactly what I was trying to say. This is one of my favorites and I’m glad it meant something to you.
I just discovered your blog and I am really enjoying reading through your posts. A lot of what you’re saying rings so true to me. I hope you are in a better frame of mind that you were in your original post… you have certainly made an impression on me and I will be bookmarking this post to remind myself to be good to myself and others.
David,
This was such a wonderful article. I, too, have struggled with the concept of true self love. People often tell you to love yourself as if it is something that you know how to do. But, as you mentioned, it is a very involved process. Your article is a great guide to help those who aren’t sure where to start. Keep inspiring!
Nea
Nea | Self Improvement Saga´s last blog ..Positive News Stories – A Welcome Change
Thanks Nea. This is one of my first articles, and it’s still a favorite.
You’ve done quite a great job on your blog. But dont you think that those who spend a lot of time writing can not physicaly have a time for the actual action? With the exception of the greatly effective individuals.
Hi Anton. I’m not sure what you mean. We all have the same 24 hours every day. Everyone has time, just different priorities.
David´s last blog ..Two Simple Tricks to Be More Comfortable in Your Own Skin
I just read your blog entry today and must say that I was in exactly the same situation not but two years ago. I’m always amazed: everyone lives life almost the same ways (people go through similar life events & make similar revelations) and yet are insistent in focusing on differences between themselves and those around them.
I came to love myself in a way that probably was not healthy yet it happened. I planned to commit suicide in the summer of 2009 I made that plan in Oct. of 2008. I was very depressed and saw no reason to live my relatives could get on without me. I knew my student loans were voided if I died so I set out over the next 7 months to plan. But most importantly I breathed the air more deeply…I enjoyed the bird songs more…I enjoyed everyone single second of the meager life I lived because I knew that it was my last holiday season…my last christmas, my last new year’s celebration, my last spring solstice. Over those months I spent money on myself in ways that I would never have done before. I’m a big penny pincher and I hate to spend money. But for the first time I bought frivolous things like flowers and needed things like clothing that I had put off buying.
When my planned date arrived I looked around and the depression had lifted, I enjoyed my own company and I truly loved myself. I no longer wanted to end my life. I have my ups and downs but spending quality time enjoying Life for what it is lead me to enjoy myself and all my flaws.
It has been an amazing year and I have transformed. I hope other people find ways to transform themselves and learn to love themselves. Hopefully not in the same way that I did but hopefully in some way.
DeAnna, your comment left a lump in my throat. Thanks for sharing. It’s been said suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Some people don’t survive the hard times. Congratulations, you made it.
David, you are positively amazing!! If I had asked for the exact help I needed it couldn’t have been more right on. I’ve been doing everything I could think of to love myself more, but it took your post to dawn on me that what I’ve been doing to myself is much like spoiling a child….as much as you love them and want them to be happy, giving into their whims is not really showing them love….and what you get in return is not love and respect from them, it is whining spoiled brat!
What a big difference this is going to make in my life. Respect for myself and doing the right thing for myself …..it seems so simple, but it took your gentle, yet powerful post to bring it to my attention…Thank you so much…I will post this (and some of your others) on the wall by my computer to re-read often.
As an earlier commenter said, you do seem like an wise and kind old soul….I wish I could give you a hug.
Hey thanks Jan. I’m glad this post struck a chord. I hope it opens a door for you.
You can hug me anytime, you just have to come to New Zealand and track me down
You seem to point out one profound truth after another. ‘wise and kind old soul’ is exactly how I would have thought of you before seeing your picture. Be glad you have discovered these truths early in your life rather than in old age, when you would have nothing but regret for not acting on them in your youth. Your are fortunate for having figured this out.
by the way thanks for sharing with the rest of us who probably never would have figured it out.