As I skim through
all I have written, each piece relates to an event in past and I realize that I
have been only as mature as the hardships I have faced. Perhaps everything I
ever wrote seemed the most important emotion at that time and at different
times, having faith, forgiving, loving, letting go, changing and living to the
fullest seemed to be the most thing….however, through all this, we forget
something important, more important than everything else and that’s – Loving ourselves.
*Going by the trend,
this piece should contain wisdom from all events of my life and should be at
all-encompassing level of maturity with all emotions intact! :D
Despite the
popular belief that everyone loves themselves, very few of us actually do.
Being selfish should not be confused with loving oneself. We all have been
involved in acts of selfishness; Adam couldn’t hold himself from having taste
of the apple and that’s what led to the human race, so guess being selfish is
being humane! Not wanting to lose on my atheist audience, my intention is to
drive attention to being there for oneself. Knowing all the weaknesses inside
us, knowing that we are not as good as we are perceived, knowing that we look
pathetic without make-up, knowing that we thought ill of someone, knowing that
we harmed someone, knowing that we have a devil living inside us, knowing et
all, even though no one else knows, and still wanting to embrace ourselves
without having to act is the act of loving oneself.
There have been
times in everyone’ life when we have felt lonely, betrayed, unfit for a
gathering, not capable of living, grief beyond bearable limits, unable to let
go and worse, unforgiving of ourselves. We tend to hold ourselves for
everything that went wrong. Someone broke our trust, and it was our fault to
trust too much. Someone didn’t give us due attention, and it was us who let
them take us for granted. Someone didn’t love us back, and we were not good/attractive
enough. Someone hurt us beyond measure, and it was our mistake to let our
hearts open. Someone thought of our competitiveness to be cut-throat and moved
away, and it was us who couldn’t be good enough friends. Our stories all cross
each others’ and more often than not, end sooner than expected majorly because
constants come with small frequency for anyone and everyone. Through all
relations we build, all actions we take, if we end up blaming ourselves, we end
up disliking ourselves and sooner or later, stop loving ourselves. There is no
denying that we have made mistakes and we act to like ourselves despite them, but
it’s important to know that once we stop loving ourselves, we don’t only become
incapable of seeing good in ourselves, but also in everyone and everything
else. Also, while we start loving ‘self’, we ensure that we will never be lonely,
however alone we are left, that however brutal the world turns, we can still
hug ourselves when night falls – however long and however dark, that whoever
betrays us in however unexpected ways, it’s not our fault, that whoever crushed
all that we believed in, we still have ourselves to fall onto, that love might
have disappointed us once, but we can give it another chance because someone
right will come to love the person we really are and because we love ourselves,
that being happy doesn’t require a particular thing, person or place, it’s
within us, that every emotion hits us the way we perceive ourselves – we cry if
an important person betrays us, we fight if that person is not-so-important and
we don’t care if the person holds no importance.
One of the most
gifted actresses of our times, Kalki Koechin once observed something really
deep:
How fabulous a
thought it is! How can you possibly love someone who you will never know well
enough if you don’t love yourself whom you know, who will never leave your side,
with whom you have spent all the days and will spend the rest of your life? If
someone else’s attention, respect, love, faith and togetherness are an
essential to your happiness, rest assured, it will wane away much sooner than
expected. I would never deny the importance of people and loving them because, there
should be some axis for our revolutions; these constants are a huge part of who
we are, but never completely us. As we grow, we know however painful, it’s
crucial to get hurt, rebuild and give everything else a second chance….even
ourselves. Know that whatever you did in whichever situation was the best you
think or could fathom. Know that one day it will all make sense, one day when
the huge pieces of jigsaw fall in place and you smile back at life. After
everything that I and my ‘self’ has been through, I love myself…do you?
