Self-love, at its core, is a state of appreciation for oneself in physiological, mental, and social factors. It means allowing yourself to take care of your own needs, even at the cost of others. It means not settling for any less than you truly deserve.
From a young age, as the case with many others, I struggled with achieving perfection. Constantly. Anything less than an A grade on a school assignment was equivalent to failure. Any “imperfections” on my body were a reason for me to obsessively hate myself, and go to extremes to “fix” them. Any slight change in my plans was cause for a mental breakdown about what I should have done differently.
Needless to say, it was a harrowing way to live a life. Nonetheless, I believed it was the correct way.
During my senior year of high school, I was accepted into the university I wanted to attend, and a great accelerated program for a career I wanted to pursue. I thought I would finally achieve satisfaction, but I didn’t.
I felt that I could have taken on more leadership roles, that I could have had more volunteering experience, that I could have done more research, that I could have… been better. I graduated at the top 1% of my high school class, was on the varsity track team, won multiple scholarships, and I achieved every miniscule goal that I wanted to and still felt that I didn’t do enough.
Throughout the entire summer before college, the majority of the world was in lockdown, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I had quarantined myself in my bedroom with absolutely nothing to do. There were no more assignments to worry about, gyms were closed, and most outdoor interpersonal activity was prohibited.
It was the perfect environment for self-realization.
I came across a Time magazine article that was about Imposter Syndrome, a system of inadequacies that persist despite evident success, and more importantly, how to deal with it. It was astounding to realize that so many other people share the same experiences with me, and even classify it as a problem among our society. It was at that moment that I had finally realized that the only imperfections I had were the ones that I wanted to see.
Ultimately, there is no such thing as perfection. As humans, it is natural to strive for success. But there’s a major difference between being driven for success, and constant self-judgement and self-doubt.
As I was taking a break from self-judgement, I felt like I had a breakthrough about who I am. I started doing activities based on the mere fact that I wanted to. Not how they would benefit me, not how they would look on a resume, and definitely not paying attention to how well I was doing in them.
I began to journal, and write about the things I loved about myself and happy experiences I had throughout the day. The more I continued to write, the more I started seeing new qualities that I loved about myself.
I began kayaking, and painting, and expressing myself in new, creative mediums. I used to lift weights and go running to make my body look more beautiful, but I failed to realize it was never anything but beautiful.
For the first time in my life, I felt like I knew who I am and I was happy with who I am.
Every single person in the world deserves to love themselves. We all deserve to forgive ourselves for things we’re not proud of. We deserve to see the beauty within ourselves, and admire ourselves even more than we admire others.
The world we live in is undoubtedly unforgiving, selfish and narcissistic. Nobody will ever be able to support you more than yourself, and nobody could ever love you more than you’re capable of loving yourself.
This Valentine’s day, remember to love yourself a little extra. You deserve it.
