I’ve encountered this quote, saying, proverb, whatever it so happens to be, a lot recently. Course, it was always phrased differently, either rearranged or with words substituted for other words, but all the meanings were the same: you have to love yourself first before you can love others. I personally don’t know how true this is, but I can see how it may be, given my observations of the human race, my own personal experience and simple common sense.
I suppose if you aren’t in love with yourself, you aren’t happy. Note, I’m using the term “in love” and the word “happy” synonymously here. Because being in love with someone or something makes you happy, so much so that you forget all faults. So to be in love with yourself, you are essentially happy with yourself, with who you are. And I suppose that leads to contentment, thereby allowing others in on your happiness, if you so choose. And in turn, they will be happy with who you are too.
But not all of us are happy with ourselves. If human nature has proven anything, it’s shown us that we as humans are never fully content about anything. We always have to find fault with something, especially with ourselves. Insecurity is probably the leading factor in all of our decision making, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. There’s just always something wrong with us, because we perceive ourself based on how society judges people. We see someone who’s described by the general public as being really pretty, yet we aren’t half as pretty as that person, so we can never be beautiful. We degrade our own beauty and aren’t happy with how we look. In turn, we feel we need to fix it. Yet, what we so often forget is that not everyone sees beauty in the same way. Just because the general public thinks that person is pretty, doesn’t mean that everyone does. I suppose it’s these realities we need to remember, so we don’t get lost in a world of superficiality.
Yet, in being unhappy with ourselves, we usually gravitate to relationships that generally might make us happy. I mean, we all feel better about ourselves when there’s someone else who likes us for whatever reasons. Because as humans, it’s in our nature to get people to like us. We all just want to be liked. But someone does like us–love us even and if we feel the same, we are instantly happy. But once that whole infatuation stage of being in a relationship fades, usually you have to work at keeping the relationship going. Often times, this is the part where all the self doubt comes in. Or maybe you’re both content and just stay in that contentment until someone gets bored? But for the most part, something happens, someone becomes unhappy or something, and it’s usually because that person has prior issues with themselves and hinder any growth in a relationship whatsoever.
In the end, I can’t make you happy. Though, I suppose I could if you were madly in love with me, but if you aren’t happy with yourself, then there will come a time when your fondness of me will fade and my radiance will no longer have the power to fuel your happiness. In which case, I don’t want to try to change myself just to suit your own happiness. If I’m happy with myself, I don’t want to deal with your unhappiness. I don’t want to feel obligated to making you happy. Because in this situation, you will never be happy with me if you aren’t already happy with yourself. That and most people generally don’t want to deal with other people’s problems.