DO YOU LOVE NUMBER ONE?

  I was discussing with a friend during the week and she asked a question ‘How do you love others without hurting yourself?’ It got me thinking a lot. I know the general rule is that ‘Love is Blind’ and ‘Love hurts’. Well, that’s the general rule, not mine. My own rules and observations in my short existence in the world of humans are that;

1)   Love is not blind. It sees the good, the bad and the ugly of the person receiving the love. Love doesn’t deceive you or pull
wool over your eyes until you hit your head on a wall or stumble and fall. It’s humans that are blind. They refuse to look and face the glaring truth before they disappoint themselves and burst whatever bubble of illusion they’ve crawled into. Like any human can be perfect enough not to have flaws or koro, so tey you didn’t see it until one morning. It was always there. 

2)   Love doesn’t hurt. It is humans that do the hurting. Please do not blame Love for your pain. God is Love. It’s that human you decided to give love to that didn’t live up to your expectations of them. It is that human that failed and not Love. Even the Bible agrees that Love doesn’t fail. Read 1Corinthians 13:4-8.

  I have observed that in order to love another without hurting yourself you need to love you first. What I’m saying might sound confusing but it’s my observation. Let me explain further.

   A lot of people search for love all their lives. They’re not happy being alone. We all want companionship and to be part of a team; to be wanted, loved and accepted.  They have insecurities about themselves and think that finding someone to love them would fill that void they feel. That someone loving them would make them complete and that insecurity and imperfection wouldn’t matter anymore. You see that’s where the problem starts. They become needy and depend solely on this other being for the love that they need. Unluckily for them if they fall into the hands of the wrong person, expecting this person to give them love, the person takes advantage of their need. This love searcher desperate to cling on to the love that they feel this other person is giving puts up with all sorts of bad behaviour. They keep thinking it’s their fault that this person doesn’t love them right, maybe if they lost some weight, changed their dressing, became a Martha Stewart, made more money, turned into the Rock, tore the bed sheets in crazy sex styles and all sorts that the love will keep coming in from this person and they’d go to any length not to lose this person. In the end, they’re broken, unhappy or their self confidence and worth disappears.

  If you do love yourself first, your loving another human being would be just extra serving. You’d be doing it because you choose to and want to and not because you NEED to. Even if this other being you choose to love behaves in a manner that you do not accept, you tell them and if they keep doing it, you being around doesn’t mean you don’t love you. It will get to a point when you’ll know you’ve had enough and then you go ‘Me or You?’ and you chose the right person. You won’t give up your self respect and confidence for and to them. You stay you. You accept and love yourself with your imperfections and don’t need another being to make you feel complete. You’re complete alone. You understand that if A can’t love me the way I want and am knowing that they can’t love me not because the way I am is bad but because I’m not their specification, it is ok.  I don’t need to kill myself to make A be with me, all I have to do is let A go, B will come along.

  Of these two groups where do you think the Baby mamas (the ones who born and keep reproducing and hanging around the same man), men and women with abusive partners, etc fall into?

  I hope my friend is reading this and this answers her question. If you love you (I don’t mean being a selfish jerk) you won’t let yourself be disrespected and get hurt. You’ll know when you’ve had enough of the lies and etc. You put you and your peace of mind, safety and self respect first. It’s that simple.

  The key I’ve observed is to learn to love you and accept yourself with all your perfections and imperfections, (both physical and otherwise) and keep working on you. As we grow we learn better ways to love ourselves and what we need. If you don’t love you why should another human do it? If you feel no human loves you, God does and He’s not even human but the creator of humans.

Do you love you?

Thanks for reading my thoughts. What are yours?