THE ART OF FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOURSELF

WHAT THE FIRST FEW WEEKS IN A SORORITY ARE LIKE

Riddhi Setty

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 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

as looking at yourself in the mirror and, instead of thinking about flaws, acknowledging that you look good today, or that you have a nice smile. It could be treating yourself to a little care and pampering every now and then because your body, mental health and peace of mind are worth it.

Loving yourself means accepting yourself. Accepting all of the things that you don’t think are attractive or cool about yourself. Accepting that you are five feet tall and have a lot of useless (but very cool) knowledge about space, or that you’re the one person in your entire class whose opinion isn’t the same as anyone else’s, proudly acknowledging all of your weird quirks or the things that make you different from others. Often, what we fail to realize in our quest to fit in is that everyone has something that makes them different from other people. Instead of repressing these things about ourselves, we should acknowledge them, accept them, and most importantly, be proud of them.

This is all definitely easier said than done, so the larger question becomes, “How do you do love yourself?” In my opinion, self-love manifests itself in a lot of different ways. This may entail a bubble bath and a book on an evening of self-care, or a solo trip to travel the world. It can also be the small things, like not apologizing for everything all the time, or forgiving yourself for messing up every now and then.

The object is to treat yourself as you would want to be treated in a relationship. In a way, the most important relationship worth fostering and taking care of is your relationship with yourself because it’s the most long-lasting.

Whether it involves looking at yourself in a mirror and saying that you love yourself, recalling what it is you like about yourself, or tooting your own horn every once in a while when you do something you’re really proud of (because you’re allowed to be proud of yourself), self-love and continuously building a positive relationship with yourself is not only good; it’s necessary.

Though it is not something that happens overnight, self-love is a commitment that is worth the time and effort that you put into it because time spent on yourself is never time wasted. Besides, if we can pour love into so many things, ranging from other people to the characters in our favorite shows, who’s to say we can’t show ourselves a little love too?