The longer I live, the more certain I am that the answer to the question:
"What's it all about?"
can be stated very simply:
"It's all about getting to love myself."
Now, stop rolling your eyes and reaching for the mouse. I said the answer can be stated very simply. I didn't say the answer is simple....although I have started wondering why we think the goal is so hard that many of us don't even try to reach it.
Why do we think of loving as something we can only do - or should only do (there's the "should" word: look for it in a blog of its own, very soon) - why do we think we can only love other people? And, frankly, if we can't love ourselves, how can we tell when we are loving other people? How can we know what love feels like? Not some sitcom and fashion magazine kind of love, but the real kind, the kind every human longs for...whether we admit it or not?
How do I get there - to loving myself? Lots of good self-help books tell me I
should(!)stop yelling at myself, stop criticizing and mocking myself for things I don't do perfectly. Stop judging myself, be kinder to myself, do nice things for me, celebrate myself, dance when I'm alone and even laugh with myself. Those can feel like baby steps when I don't love myself, like being at the start of a very long road: will I even have enouh time to get all the way up to loving myself with those small things?
Here's the thing: as long as we're living under the burden of things we wish were different in our lives, we can't know how it feels to be loved by ourselves. But even if we can change some of those small things we wish were different - like the ways we treat ourselves - wouldn't we feel better? And, maybe it's only a short road, not so long as we're afraid (fear: please read the Fear blog before you continue).
Here's another thing: every day that I live is another whole day of my very own life. Why should I waste any of them? Why wouldn't I want to spend every single one of them in the best love affair I could ever have - the one I can be absolutely certain will last for as long as I live? Wouldn't everything be much better in that environment? Isn't that what it's all about?
