How Do I Love ME… Let me count the ways…

 “To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance” - Oscar Wilde

One of the easiest things that we can do in life is to love another person. The hardest thing is to love ourselves. I, for one, for the previous months had loathed myself. Not anymore.

When I read Mitch Albom’s For One More Day it made me rethink of things that has been going on with my life and I couldn’t help it but agree with her when she said that when you rot yourself, you’ve rotten to everybody else who loves you. One single mistake shouldn’t let you turn to somebody you’re not, not just because you’ll ruin your life but also everybody else who have been there for you, who love you and cares about you. And I know I just don’t want that to happen. It took time I have to admit and there are still times I hate myself for it. But, I know as well that life doesn’t end with one single mistake.

For everything I went through, I realized that the only way you can fully love another person, a partner or not, is you must learn how to love yourself. There can be quite relentless in our pursuit of perfection: that we should do this and be like that. But, as what other people say that when things happen and the things that you know didn’t line up, you have to make a choice and live with it.

Acceptance is the first step. For whatever you did in your past and whatever it did to you, you just have to let it go and accept it did happen. For one, you can’t turn back time and undo things. And second, you have no other option but to move on. Just accept that you did it. Deal with it. Have a faith that inside you, things will get better in God’ time and in God’s will.

Second, like what I mention earlier, you should realize that you don’t exist just for yourself. You are somebody. You’re a son or daughter, a relative, a lover and a friend. No matter how your role changes over the time, you’re still somebody. You could have gone through the best and worst things in life but there is nothing that can change the fact that you are somebody to someone.  

The third thing you should do is to learn how really love yourself. Yes, romantically. Those things that you do for somebody special, you can and you must do that to yourself too. Write a love letter, treat yourself to a very nice candlelit meal, buy the nicest things you deserve and more.

And lastly, try to live life one day at a time. Try not to think of what will happen in the future and what happened in the past. It will always have worries on its own. What matters the most is the present. Cherish it and love it. It is the only thing that you are sure of and the only thing you can work on.

Buddha once said: “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.”