When you are committed to something or someone, you can often lose sight of yourself. Life can be hard; there are many aspects of it that we are expected to maintain such as school, work, health and relationships. More often than not, when trying to live up to these social expectations, people forget to love themselves. We all want to do our best, but we should never compromise ourselves and our well-being for the sake of trying to be the very best. As a perfectionist, I have certainly learned through many experiences that trying to achieve perfection at the expense of yourself is counterintuitive and just not worth it. I have learned that being selfish sometimes is completely acceptable and very much needed to be the best person that you can be. When you put yourself first, you can be a better person for others. I was always under the impression that life is inherently hard, but what I have learned and am starting to accept is that life doesn't happen to you, it happens for you. What you experience and how you experience things in life essentially depends on you. It's you who has the power to let challenging and negative situations make or break you. When things don't go your way, it's especially important to avoid blaming life or being too hard on yourself, because this just weakens your sense of self and causes you to develop a negative outlook on life. The burdens that we shoulder are unnecessary to stress over, because doing so allows you to focus less on yourself. Loving yourself entails being kind to yourself when life does get difficult and making yourself a priority. Let life's challenges make you instead of break you. Allow yourself, no matter how hard it may be, to see the positive in all situations. This is what real self-love is like.