Accepting yourself as you are..

This in theory sounds so appealing to people pursuing happiness..specially if one’s life is in dire straits and any lifeline to feel better about one’s situation is exactly the remedy they have been seeking.

So many people buy into accepting themselves as they are.. that they never realise they have resigned themselves to never learning or evolving to become better.

In the pursuit of happiness, they forgo a most crucial facet of life that is learning should never cease.

“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”
—Zig Ziglar

Accepting yourself is not wrong, but don’t accept yourself as you are. You may say that makes no sense.. well here in lies the rub.

Accepting yourself is an acknowledgement of you as a person having certain traits and qualities at a moment in time, but you can accept yourself without resigning to remaining the way you are.

I am a talkative person, I accept this.. but I wish to keep an open mind to change this lest there be a better way to behave. Keep an open mind that you can still learn new things and become better.

“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.”
— James Belasco and Ralph Stayer

Self-love deliberately fails to distinguish that just because you accept yourself, you don’t have to remain the same. It wants you to love yourself the way you are and not change, continuing to live this way very easily becomes an exercise in pride and hedonism.

I have seen people under the spell of Self-love proclaim “I have (insert any given bad virtue) but I’m proud of it because I am practising self-love and accept myself as I am and so should you.”

Prioristing your needs

As the name suggests it’s pretty obviously what it means.. and if one’s not careful it can most certainly lead a person to behaving selfishly.

The entire premise of this school of thought is a focus on the sense of self. Prioritising your individual needs above all else, to the detriment of one’s partner, family or society..it is the very definition of selfishness.

I’m not saying that a person can’t prioritise their needs, sometimes, however, Self-love again does not qualify this broad teaching. Instead, promotes that an individual must always prioritise their own needs otherwise they aren’t going to be practising true self-love.

Self Sacrifice

On the other hand, people subscribe to the more old-school mantra of self sacrifice and service, “others above oneself.”

There are things to be vary of here too.. one can’t simply keep sacrificing forever otherwise soon there will be nothing left to give.

It can also lead to people practicing self flagellation through obsessing over what people think about them.. they never realise that self sacrifice does not require pleasing everyone all of the time.

I have seen people wanting to be virtuous, sacrifice themselves at the alter of virtue to produce nothing of value.

This life has intrinsic value, but it can become a total waste when sacrificed for people who don’t value that sacrifice.

Quandary Solved

In summary, life should first and foremost be about balance and in the pursuit of happiness I truly believe our ideal behaviour can best be portrayed as a spectrum.

We should strive to be virtuous and service minded within reason and up to a point where our life is not becoming a waste.

If we do realise, that people are taking advantage of us that is when some of the aspects of self-love should be adopted to ensure our life is not becoming a waste and remains fulfilling to some extent for ourselves.