"Get beach body ready with this 20-minute workout!" "Who wore it better?" "5 quick tips to make yourself more likable!" In a society that gets its power by telling you to hate this part and change that part of you, it is so insanely difficult to love yourself. The worst part doesn't even stem from self-loathing but the negative push back from others. Often times you can be called conceited or narcissistic by those who have been consumed by a self-hate driven society but continuing to love yourself anyway is so important.
When you come to love yourself, you stop settling in all aspects of the word. You don't settle for half-baked love, you don't settle for fair-weather friends, you don't settle for being unappreciated. You. Don't. Settle. You know your own worth and you refuse to give yourself any less than you deserve. You become more aware of just how much you matter, and if other people aren't going to treat you in such a way then you simply do not have time to waste on them.
Speaking of time, your time becomes so much more valuable to you once you decide to love yourself. You stop going to events you don't want to be at just to make someone happy because you have better things to do. You could be spending that time doing something productive or being with people that make your time worthwhile. Time is precious, it's one of the only factors in your life that cannot be changed, and when you appreciate yourself you stop spending it doing things that don't hold value to you or make you better.
Being able to love yourself makes you so much better at loving other people. You become better at loving your partner, your friends, your family and even strangers. You quit putting other people down and instead try to lift them up, you try to get them to appreciate themselves as much as you do. By loving yourself, you eliminate the need for people to reassure you that you are smart, or beautiful, or funny because you know you are. All that time that used to be spent trying to make yourself feel better can now be spent on the people around you.
Now don't get me wrong; loving yourself is about your physical being too. "Treat yo self," becomes a reality, and you say it often. You find yourself being treated to relaxation time, pampering, shopping sprees and diners not by a date, but by your own self. Knowing your worth makes you act on it, you truly believe you are worthy of your own time and you're going to spend it however you want, be it with a well-deserved nap or a full sized cheesecake and no regrets.
Life is too short to spend it trying to make other people happy and neglecting yourself in the process. Once you've come to the realization that no one is going to take care of you quite like you can, loving and appreciating yourself becomes so crucial to a truly happy existence. So keep calm and love on darling.
