Society has drilled into our brains that loving yourself is seen as selfish or it can be seen as a form of narcissism. We seldom hear that it’s important to love yourself and to hold yourself in high regards. But it is. It’s important that you are the person that you love the most in the world. It’s also important to know that there’s a difference between loving yourself and being self-centered. Because at the end of the day, the only person who will always be there for you through thick and thin and until the end of time is you.

Loving yourself is having respect for yourself. It’s knowing that you should walk away from that abusive relationship, it’s knowing that you shouldn’t put yourself down when giving an apology, it’s knowing that you deserve more to life when you’re unhappy. But being selfish and self-centered is putting yourself first but simultaneously disregarding the feelings of the people around you and disrespecting them, too. There is a difference between loving yourself and being a jerk.

Loving yourself is when you accept and acknowledge your flaws, but you also realize that you can change for your own betterment. For example, I can be a petty person sometimes, but I know when I’m wrong and I know when to own up to my mistakes. I know when I have to change myself in order to respect the people around me and in order to bring respect to myself. Loving yourself is to know when you should change.

But it’s also knowing when you shouldn’t change. Loving yourself is when you’re in love with your personality and with your accomplishments. It's when you're in love with who you are and who you are becoming. It’s loving the fact that you’re bubbly, that you’re quiet, or that you’re confident, even if people criticize you for being too friendly, too anti-social, or too obnoxious.

Loving yourself is not comparing yourself to other people. “Oh, she’s so much prettier.” “Oh, she’s so much skinnier.” “Oh, she’s so much smarter.” The only person you should compare yourself to is the person you were yesterday, to see if you’ve grown or to see if you learned from your mistakes. You shouldn’t measure the quality of your life based on someone else’s standards. The only person you should look at to see change and growth, is yourself. It doesn’t matter if the other person is prettier, skinnier, or smarter. All that matters is that you focus on yourself and yourself only.

So, love yourself. You need to take care of yourself, and you need to put yourself first. You need to learn and to grow from yourself, because you’re going to be the best teacher and the best friend that you’ll have in this life.