Self Love.

Self love isn’t about how you choose to pamper yourself, it is about what
the outcome is. As long as it does not make you feel happy or satisfied with
yourself, it is not self love. Self love does not mean that you need to isolate
yourself from everyone, it means that it is okay to take some time to
yourself once in a while. Self love does not mean you have to get
manicures done, sometimes it just means gathering the strength to get out
of bed in the morning to study or to go to work. Self love isn’t always about
how many hours you grind at the gym or how many calories you didn’t
consume, sometimes it is just about how you did not cry yourself to sleep or
how you finished the tasks you’ve been putting off for so long.

Spending some time by yourself is good for you as you learn more about
yourself as a person. But if you spend all of your alone time binge watching
movies and eating tons of unhealthy food, it is not self love.
It’s self destruction.

These days, people have made having self destructive patterns of behavior
sound so cool that we have really forgotten how important it is to be a
constructive personality. Posting suicidal thoughts on social media is not cool.
Letting your ego spoil your relationships & then victimizing yourself is not cool.
Not taking accountability for your actions & always blaming others for your
wrong doings is not cool. Drinking irresponsibly & then boasting about it like
it is a badge of honor is not cool. Procrastinating work to watch Netflix in bed
all day long is not cool. Everyone deserves a break once in a while, but
adopting negative attitudes towards life is what brings us down.

Don’t let the perfect Instagram profiles or Facebook pictures fool you.
You may see the happy blogger who just posted a picture of his tremendous
weight loss, or you may see a junior posting her acceptance letter to an
esteemed institution, but what you don’t see is the months of hard work &
self control that went into reaching their desired goals. You don’t see the
parties they didn’t attend, the diets they followed or the number of nights
they didn’t sleep just to make things work out the way they wanted.

In order to reach somewhere you have to start at some point, and for that
you need to start seeing yourself as a person who can get things done.
Self pity & discontentment may be able to get you some sympathy today,
but it won’t be helpful in the long term. You need to stop comparing yourself
to others & start focusing on your own self. Even if you decide to take a
step as small as waking up an hour earlier or starting every morning with a
cup of green tea, it is still a step. Working in the direction of being a better
person will always be the cooler thing to do. You may lose a few friends
today, but tomorrow when you’ll see everything you’ve achieved, you will
thank yourself for the decisions you made.

It is important to understand that everything starts with you and how you
feel about yourselves. If you feel that you’re worthy enough to lead the life
you dream of, then you can! You need to determine what it is going to take
for you to live the kind of life you desire and act on that. Keep your faith
larger than your fears. Don’t be afraid of doing things differently than the
rest of the crowd. But most importantly, don’t be afraid of rediscovering
yourself through the process. Caring enough about yourself to cut off the
wrong influences in your life & choosing yourself when others refuse to do
so is not being selfish.

After all, self love is choosing yourself and choosing yourself is self care.