I have a confession to make. Probably half of the time that I “like” people’s post on social media, I do not even care what the post says. It is really the person that I am “liking”. I just want to show that person some love. I want them to know that I care about them. I hope this does not diminish this action now!
Honestly, this is how I am with people in real life, and how I hope people will act toward me. I try to love the person and not place too much emphasis on the post so much. So too do I try to love the person without placing too much emphasis on whatever they are doing or saying.
I understand what we do or say matters and can have consequences, but I would rather people know they are loved more than I want them to know that their words and actions have consequences. Am I great at this? Not quite, but I do try my best each day to love others.
This ties in to how I love myself too. In fact, if I want to properly love others as they deserve, then I must properly love myself in the same way. While I might be able to force myself to love others even though I did not love myself, I do a much better job of loving those around me when I love and respect myself.
To love and respect yourself you need to understand something important and, interestingly enough, very similar to my viewpoint on liking social media posts. Your posts deserve to get thousands of likes despite what they proclaim to the world. In other words, you have tremendous value and are worthy of love despite what you do or your acceptance by others.
Oddly enough, many blame social media as the culprit in influencing people more to clamor for love and affection based on what they do and say. While I would prefer not to go into that, I do want to highlight how wrong it is, with or without social media, that we put so much importance on what others think of us. We can be free from this type of thinking and valuing of ourselves to truly love ourselves and others better.
This is the first step to better loving yourself as you deserve to be loved. Once you learn that you have value despite the opinions of others, your actions, and how well you perform them, you will be able to love yourself better. I know what it’s like to fall for the trap of basing my worth off how well I perform and basing it on the simple fact that I exist. I can share the former is absolutely exhausting and will destroy you.
We need to recognize the truth that our worth as humans is not determined by our performance, but by the simple fact that we are here, and we are human beings. Your worth does not come from the approval from others, but from something much deeper. Once you realize that your importance stems from your existence, you will become invincible.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the trap of overthinking what others are thinking of you. This mindset causes anxiety, sadness, and dissatisfaction. We have tremendous worth as human beings simply because we are. Furthermore, we each can have a significant relationship with God.
Our existence is meaningful, and we are utterly loved by God. Once we realize these truths, we are clothed with impenetrable armor. The whole world can point and laugh at us, calling us losers, but we become untouchable when we live in these truths.
In this way we will best be able to love ourselves and others. We can stop wasting time worrying about what other people think about us and spend more time loving them. This is how you are meant to live. This is how you will truly be happy.
Once, I was praying and God gave me a vision of Native Americans long ago doing a celebratory dance with which they were worshipping one of their gods of nature. I remembered the feeling of contempt I had as a child for people who worshipped nature in such a way. God then told me that it was funny that I felt this way, because I did the same thing with my worshipping of the affirmation I received from others.
I was struck to the core. In modern times we can feel so superior to those who lived long ago, but we really follow the same patterns they did. I worshipped what other people thought of me just as much as the Native Americans worshipped the gods of nature.
We should only worship the one true God, love ourselves despite what others think about us, and love others despite what the world thinks about them. We should love people regardless of what they post on Facebook or Instagram. We should love people despite their political views, religious affiliation, and background. We should love them whether they are good or not so good at their jobs, or maybe don’t even have a job.
So too should we love ourselves despite these things. We should never look down on ourselves. Even if we blow the biggest deal at work, flunk the most important test in school, get broken up with, look stupid in front of people we care about, or have an awkward conversation, we are worthy of tremendous love and have value.
By recognizing this about yourself, you can more easily see it in others. In this way, you can love others better by loving yourself. Do not worship what others think of you, this would be treating them to an end of making you feel good about yourself. Instead, love them despite how they think of you or what they do. Love the one posting despite their posts.
