Falling in love with oneself isn’t easy. You know your own flaws and imperfections and to give a damaged human being that kind of unconditional love requires a lot of patience and dedication; it requires trust.
We often don’t trust ourselves with a lot of things. I don’t trust that I can ever get an A in my statistics class. I think I am incapable of achieving that score. And if I think I am incapable, I will never be capable. I don’t necessarily trust myself to be the most satisfied human being and hence I will simply never be one.
There is no hard learned formula for falling in love, sometimes you might not even realize but you may have fallen head over heels with someone already. But falling in love with yourself requires a guidebook; a guidebook with one simple rule that quite bluntly states, “In order to love yourself, you must behave in ways that you admire (Irving Yalom).”
Everyone visualises an ideal self and the closer you are to your ideal self, the more likely you are to appreciate yourself. My ideal self is an extremely selfless human being: a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 but I might only be 7 as of yet. And in order for me to love myself in the purest form, I have to strive to be the 10.
Everywhere everyone around you is searching for this ideal self, not in themselves but in others. Often when we don’t love ourselves enough, we go looking for someone else to love us and show us our best selves. Often we come across people hoping they would fill up the void in our lives. And this very void that we are so desperate to fill, makes us feel vulnerable and naked.
Love for me is beyond any measure of lust or beauty. Love is what comforts you just by the thought of it. There is love in friendship and there is love in honesty. However, the brutality of love is that it ruins you. But philautia (self love) unlike any other kind of love, always uplifts you.
I have loved and lost. And I feel so scared that I’m never going to feel that way again. I am relentlessly looking for love while I’m also subconsciously waiting for it to knock on my door as a surprise.
But instead of waiting in distress, it is time I provide myself with what I am desperately searching for.
As college students we almost always fall prey to conversations that involve friends almost always talking about the people they are dating. You suddenly become the “other” when you feel alienated. You suddenly become the “other” when everyone around you is either falling in or out of love. The college environment exerts a certain pressure on you where you feel compelled to give in to what everyone else seems to be doing. If anything, you resort to Tinder or Bumble.
So stop dating that guy who abused you. Stop looking for love on websites where commitment phobics look for hook up buddies. Stop hanging around with someone who makes you his side chick.
Identify the things you love about him. List it on a sticky note. Hang it on your mirror. This will remind you that these are the qualities you adore. These are the things that you should train yourself to excel in.
When you stop looking for them in others, you will start looking for them inside you. There is no harm in being old school and waiting for love to come to you instead of trying to find it at a bar or club. Halt. Don’t rush.
We have a long way to go, many paths of life are yet to be discovered so live on with the hope of every path taking you to a better destination each time. We have big dreams, big enough to scare us. But only with belief and trust, will these dreams become realities.
For original article- http://campusclipper.com/blog/philautia/
Sushmita Roy 