The only person we all love is our own self. This is primary to each one of us and the corollary to this is that we also want everybody else to love us. Everything else follows like a conditional appendage. Love for parents, love for teacher, love for children, love for spouse, love for friends, love for brother and sister and love for anything else under the sun comes only after love for self. I say conditional because they exist when and only when the first two conditions are in existence and working in our life.
We love our own self as we are. Fair or dark skinned, tall or short, intelligent or dumb, good looking or ugly, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, agnostic or atheist, belonging to the east or west, nothing matters. The relationship between mind and body is very strong and inter-dependent. The mind exists and operates on an artificial and temporary frame and only has the body as created by nature for all its work. Similarly the body needs and depends on the mind for all its activities. Therefore we love our own self as we are. To us, there can be nothing so precious, so beautiful, and so prized, as our own self, inspite of all its faults, defects and shortcomings. And what is it that we don’t do to express our love for own self? At the visible level people apply make-up, style their hair, dress well - trendy or traditional, exercise and go to the gym and even go to the extent of plastic surgery, implants and liposuction. At a deeper level we groom ourselves – manners, etiquettes, language, soft skills and vocational skills. We do all this because we want to be better than the rest. We love ourselves so much that believe we can. Earnings and living standards are only the measuring scales. They serve the purpose of demonstrating our degree of self love. This same love can turn into hate when the mind and body do not match each other’s expectations. This usually happens when we do not accept our limitations of abilities or are unable to control some wayward or unwarranted tendencies. Unable to handle the humiliation and defeat, we blame everything outside. We stop loving ourselves and want to put an end to our life, leading to depression and suicidal urges.
We also want everybody to love us as we are. You have to love me and only then will I love you. The whole concept of “romance” and “falling in love” can be put down to these thoughts; (a) I love you because I know that you love me, (b) I think I love you because I think you love me or will love me, (c) I will or could love you but first you have to demonstrate that you love me. If one exhibits an extraordinary interest or a compassionate inquisition, it can make the other person feel loved. It then opens the doors for a reciprocal expression. And then love blossoms. Being loved by another augments our love for own self and boosts our self esteem. It strengthens our feeling that we are worthy of being loved by our own self as well as by others. And what don’t we do to get others to love us? We pretend to meet the other person’s expectations and to be someone else if required. At the other end we also labour very hard to go beyond and actually deliver more than the other person’s expectations. Therefore by hook or by crook we strive for the other persons love. When such love dries up or does not fructify, complex reactions can come forth. Some people become angry; some go into a shell, some become depressed while some become anti-social. Michael Jackson, a gifted man, who worked very hard to please people beyond their expectations, died feeling that people did not love him. Marriages fail when partners do not feel loved. Parents and children fall apart, friends separate and brothers and sisters do not talk to each other when love is not felt and received.
We love our own self as we are. Fair or dark skinned, tall or short, intelligent or dumb, good looking or ugly, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, agnostic or atheist, belonging to the east or west, nothing matters. The relationship between mind and body is very strong and inter-dependent. The mind exists and operates on an artificial and temporary frame and only has the body as created by nature for all its work. Similarly the body needs and depends on the mind for all its activities. Therefore we love our own self as we are. To us, there can be nothing so precious, so beautiful, and so prized, as our own self, inspite of all its faults, defects and shortcomings. And what is it that we don’t do to express our love for own self? At the visible level people apply make-up, style their hair, dress well - trendy or traditional, exercise and go to the gym and even go to the extent of plastic surgery, implants and liposuction. At a deeper level we groom ourselves – manners, etiquettes, language, soft skills and vocational skills. We do all this because we want to be better than the rest. We love ourselves so much that believe we can. Earnings and living standards are only the measuring scales. They serve the purpose of demonstrating our degree of self love. This same love can turn into hate when the mind and body do not match each other’s expectations. This usually happens when we do not accept our limitations of abilities or are unable to control some wayward or unwarranted tendencies. Unable to handle the humiliation and defeat, we blame everything outside. We stop loving ourselves and want to put an end to our life, leading to depression and suicidal urges.
We also want everybody to love us as we are. You have to love me and only then will I love you. The whole concept of “romance” and “falling in love” can be put down to these thoughts; (a) I love you because I know that you love me, (b) I think I love you because I think you love me or will love me, (c) I will or could love you but first you have to demonstrate that you love me. If one exhibits an extraordinary interest or a compassionate inquisition, it can make the other person feel loved. It then opens the doors for a reciprocal expression. And then love blossoms. Being loved by another augments our love for own self and boosts our self esteem. It strengthens our feeling that we are worthy of being loved by our own self as well as by others. And what don’t we do to get others to love us? We pretend to meet the other person’s expectations and to be someone else if required. At the other end we also labour very hard to go beyond and actually deliver more than the other person’s expectations. Therefore by hook or by crook we strive for the other persons love. When such love dries up or does not fructify, complex reactions can come forth. Some people become angry; some go into a shell, some become depressed while some become anti-social. Michael Jackson, a gifted man, who worked very hard to please people beyond their expectations, died feeling that people did not love him. Marriages fail when partners do not feel loved. Parents and children fall apart, friends separate and brothers and sisters do not talk to each other when love is not felt and received.
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