Love Yourself as Others Love You

While the title of this post may seem somewhat backwards to you and I shall explain. The famous hebrew phrase said by R' Akiva "v'ahavta L'rayacha Kamocha- love others as you love yourself" has been taught throughout the Jewish community for years and years. However, this saying seems not to be the trend these days and it needs to be noticed.

I struggled for years and years with loving myself. Whether it was my sexuality or other things, I just couldn't bring myself to find the inner peace to love myself. And it's a problem I see all too often in today's world. Instead of finding inner-peace and looking inside one's self for love, many people go to others. Sometimes it's other outlets- overbearing friendships, drinking, game systems, any way to avoid spending time with yourself. Any way to avoid thinking about who you are and what's going on inside you. I've worked really hard at this- at just spending time with myself and focusing on me in order to learn new things about me and not run away from parts of me that I was scared of. So now I challenge you, too. When was the last time you spent time alone? Not on a subway, not with a iPod or a TV show, but just time thinking about who you are and what that means to you. What parts of you you do like and what parts of you you might want to change.

I unfortunately know too many people who go to others for love and relationships and look to others to care about them, so they don't have to care for themselves and I honestly just want everyone to love themselves so they don't have to run for the rest of their lives from what's inside. Sometimes you just have to love yourself as others love you.