If you ever ask me to list things I love, it's going to take a depressingly long time for me to say, "I love myself." In fact, I think I would name french fries before I name myself. In the past few weeks, I've been trying to think of new ways to put myself and my needs first. Because as a busy college student, I've let my responsibilities overwhelm me lately, and I know I'm not the only one. But I very quickly realized that nothing was going to get better until I knew that the first thing out of my mouth when someone asked me what I love is myself.

Loving yourself is hard and for everyone, it requires different things. For me, it means I need to admit that I like taking selfies when I wear makeup and it means that I need to say no sometimes because my sleep is more important than what anyone else needs, among other things. But when I live like this, I feel selfish. I feel like I need to be giving more to the world. However, as I trudge through my days running on no sleep, saying yes to every obligation and then some, I've come to recognize that not only am I not enjoying anything I do, I'm also not helping anyone.

By choosing your own needs before anyone else's, you're not being selfish. It's a hard fact to accept (if you're anything like me at least) and yet I can assure you that nothing will get better until you do. In fact, I'm really not sure why it's so unacceptable to be selfish for yourself sometimes. I can understand that I'm not always going to be able to choose myself first because life just isn't that easy. But I definitely need to feel more comfortable caring for myself than I am when I am caring for others.

Who is your harshest critic? In most cases, it's yourself because no one knows you better. Therefore no one can point out your own insecurities the way that you can. There's no feeling quite like the one when you're mad at yourself. Often times I wonder if I will ever really be able to meet my own unrealistic expectations. Because I do have a tendency to expect myself to do absolutely Herculean tasks that I'm not really capable of doing.

At the end of the day, it's still your choice whether you want to love yourself the way that you want to be loved. Sometimes I imagine the little devil and angel on your shoulders telling you how to care for yourself one way or the other. I urge you to choose loving yourself. To choose yourself before anyone else. Even though other people in your life love you, I can promise that there's nothing quite like saying you love yourself before you love anything or anyone else.