Why love yourself? Is it really important and needed for our survival? Why no one taught us about self-love? Let’s talk about it today.

Everything in this world and everyone in this world is looking for two things: LOVE and HAPPINESS. There are actually five basic necessities, not three – roti, kapda, makaan, love, and happiness. It is so strange that self-love is not taught in our schools or in our homes. It is the one thing that can make our world a happy place. But funny it is, how people keep searching for happiness in others.

What do I mean by “Finding happiness in others” ?

Now it has two meanings. One is that you are happy seeing the other person happy which is great, the other is you are using the other person to make yourself happy. I am talking about the later one.

Let’s see the common cycle that people follow to find happiness and how it is so wrong.

How you find your happiness in a Child?
You want your kids to score well, perform well, so you can be happy and tell others happily.

Where you went wrong?
The peer pressure you put on your kids to achieve good marks or by indirectly making them feel that they are in competition with others and they have to win.

How you find happiness in a Teenager?
You want your kids to make a career in what you like or you think is good for them, it may be your family business or something that other kids are achieving. Here you find your happiness by telling every relative and another person that my kid is pursuing this or has achieved this. The pride you feel at that moment gives you happiness.

Where you went wrong?
The pressure you are developing by forcing to do something that does not interest your child.

How you find happiness in an Adult?
You want your kids to marry someone because now that will give you happiness. Because this is how the world is finding happiness from years. The fact that your child is ready or not, or she/he even wants the whole marriage thing, is not such a big concern. The real big concern is — “Abhi tak tumhari shadi nahi hui, log kya bolenge, socha hai kabhi”.

Where you went wrong ?

• Waste of money – Because you want to show people, what you can do for your kid’s happiness, i.e., Unnecessary showoff

• Stress – Arrangements should be perfect, you can’t afford to upset any relative because “log kya kahenge” is a bigger concern.

• Society – If doesn’t work out, instead of the two, now entire family, society, relatives start gossiping about their divorce, and how they should have tried harder.

• Adjustment – You don’t have to adjust with one person, but their entire family. Everyone will say we have also done it, why can’t you?

• The need for love – 50% of the people get ready for marriage is because they want to be loved and secondly because they are allowed to have a physical relationship with their partner which is now socially accepted.

The list is never-ending. So in spite of all these factors, everyone is trying to find happiness in it. It may be just a matter of perspective, but your perspective changes when you start loving yourself.

How you find happiness in a married couple?
Now that you don’t have anything interesting left in life to entertain yourself, you want something new to be happy. So finally you start asking your kids to give a grandson/granddaughter and start a family soon so that you get to play with them.

Where you went wrong?
Forcing to have a kid can lead to an unhappy family. The one they will give birth to will have to bear all the frustration that they have as a result of a forced kid.

The same cycle continues again and again.

Self-love does not mean that you should stop this cycle. But change the cycle, here’s how –

1. Give your kid a chance to learn on his own. Guide him to understand things and motivate, don’t force to score good or win.
2. Let your kid explore what he can be interested in to choose as a career for herself/himself.
3. Marriage should not be discussed as a necessary topic. If they want and find someone good enough they should get married. If your kid is happy without marriage let it be. Happiness is what matters.
4. Let your kids plan for their baby and not you.

Do you feel the same? Then let’s discuss another big issue.

It’s not just your parents forcing you into all this for their happiness. Here, everyone is involved, your relatives, friends, colleagues, society, people. Everyone is so much concerned about another person’s life. Questions normally asked by people nowadays — “What are your wedding plans?”, “Kya karte ho beta?”, “Paise kamane ke liye kya karte ho?”, “Bacha kab plan kar rahe ho?”, “Mera to breakup ho gya, tera kya scene hai”, “Kaha gayab hai itne dino se”, “Isne to call karna hi chod diya”, “I have got a proposal for you, it’s a perfect match” etc. The list is never-ending.

How does anything that happens in someone’s life affect yours? What should be our biggest concern?

The only thing one should be concerned about is if that person you are asking these questions to is happy or not. The only question everyone should ask each other is “Are you happy?”. But nobody asks you this, because people are not concerned if you are happy or not, how they will be, they themselves are not happy. They are busy finding their own happiness.

Find your happiness within yourself!

People are finding pride in the wrong things. You want your kids to excel in everything. Here what we forget is that every individual is different and is good at different things. You should feel proud, you have taught your kid to be happy, you should be proud that your kid learned how to live her/his life on their own. It should not be concerned with how much they are earning, what’s their package, what’s their profession, or if they are married or not.

Expecting from others is the root cause of everything!

It’s true that you as a parent do sacrifice a lot for your kids, but somewhere while doing so you expect them to sacrifice for you as well. Just because you did the same for your parents. Everything you force your kids to do, the pressure you put, you are indirectly asking your kid to sacrifice. Do you really want them to sacrifice on something, just because you did? The true form of parenting is to trust and give freedom to your child to choose, that is the only way to connect, only then you can be friends with them.

This need to getting loved by someone is what makes people do all this crap for so many years. Why not love yourself? Let’s make yourself that person you want to fall in love with or just accept the way you are. Self-love is nothing but an art of accepting yourself. Start self-exploring, self-care, self-love, and let you be the reason to make yourself happy. If you let that happen, people around you will automatically feel that vibe.

Let’s see what one can achieve with self-love –

Feeling loved, Happiness, Confidence, Good health, Clean thoughts, No depression, Peace, Busy improving yourself, No need of being around people anymore (Communication is good if it’s a healthy one), Growth, Success (One gives their best in what they do), Freedom (Others opinion doesn’t affect you anymore).

Do you love yourself ?

If your answer is NO, start working on it. After all, it’s your life, you have to live it. If nobody else can live it for you, then you should also not live it for others. Let’s start practicing self-love from today, every day.

Self Love is the Greatest Love!