THE ART OF FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOURSELF
Riddhi Setty
Devon McGinley There is a widely held philosophy that one cannot love someone else without loving themselves first. I call bullshit. I believe that it is entirely possible to love other people or accept them as they are without fully loving or accepting yourself. My reasoning for this is based on the simple reality that we are far more critical when it comes to ourselves than any other individual. We are less likely to forgive or accept ourselves because we tend to hold ourselves up to an unrealistic standard of perfection that we feel is necessary to comply to. Love is not an ifs, ands or buts kind of emotion. It is not conditional, and therefore the love you give to others is not based on your ability to give it to yourself. However, even though it isn’t necessary to love yourself in order to love someone else, it is essential for one’s own well-being to accept themselves as they are. All of the Pinterest quotes and overplayed song
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lyrics about self-acceptance and loving yourself, while corny, are accurate. It is important to love yourself, and moreover, it is okay to love yourself. We have a lot of hesitations when it comes to self-love and selfappreciation. Some feel they are not deserving, or feel guilty about recognizing their own strengths or amazing features. As a result, they tend to highlight the things they don’t like about themselves, instead of the things that they do like. We are surrounded by an environment that thinks selfdeprecation and loathing are not only okay, but are cool, so much so that it is weird to hear someone acknowledge a positive attribute about themselves, yet normal to hear them say something that they hate about themselves. Loving yourself doesn’t have to be a grand revelation where you run up and down the street yelling, “I love myself!” at the top of your lungs. It can manifest itself in many different ways. It could be something as small
