Love your neighbour as yourself! – A beautiful quote, but, meaningless till you love and appreciate yourself first. It is interesting how many people assume loving yourself is selfish! But is it really? I believe it is not selfish to love yourself.
Unless you love and respect yourself, you cannot truly do it for others. Accept yourself for who you are with all your shortcoming, quirks and nuttiness , it is all of that along with your good things which makes *YOU* special. There maybe millions and zillions of people on this planet , but none can take your place ever. Remember, “you may be somebody to the world, but to somebody you are the world” ….
Okay, I think I am getting sidetrackde from the topic now, coming back to it. I think you know now what I mean when I say love yourself, so coming to “Love your neighbour” part of the quote. Does this mean your neighbour , literally ? Well that and it means much more than that. In today’s world, we are all neighbours, courtesy the internet. Also , in today’s world people are a tad too touchy and quick to label anything small even as a racist comment or as a personal comment… If you learned to love your neighbour as yourself, you would learn to look beyond the race and the words. Also, you would be more considerate for the other person, after all you wouldn’t comment on yourself or would you?
So, first let us love ourself, second let us put aside our insecurities and prejudices and Lastly, love our neighbour as ourself.
PS I love you guys!
I agree – you can’t love others fully until you love and accept yourself! It makes your relationships so much more meaningful.
It’s like taking a dry-run before the answering the official test…
I agree. You cannot really learn how to love others if you haven’t started loving yourself. One’s capacity to give love comes from his/her desire to embrace his/her own flaws.