It seems that people often go looking for love in the external world when they have yet to love the most important person in their life, themselves.

To love yourself is not selfish, it is essential because until you love yourself, until you value yourself, until you understand what love is, how can you love another? As the saying goes, "How can you give what you do not have?"

Also, if you are looking for someone to love in the external world, do you want to be with somebody that doesn't care about themselves? Probably not, and those very same people won't likely want to be with a person that doesn't love themselves either.

Loving yourself does not make you selfish, nor does it automatically mean that you are a narcissist, it simply gives you the tools AND power to know what love means (to you) and then to be able to share that with another living being. I say “living being” because I don’t think it matters if it is another human, and animal or even a plant, if we can’t understand our concept of love, it is not possible to share it.

Furthermore, if I haven’t convinced you yet that it’s good to love yourself, then perhaps if I paraphrase Wayne Dyer from one of his talks that will convince you. Wayne explained it really astutely when he stated that if we have self-love then we aren’t a burden to anyone, which is the exact opposite of being selfish.

Poems, books, songs and perhaps even cave drawings have been created to discuss love, yet I would guess a lot less has been written about self-love, which in my mind is the starting point. This doesn’t mean that there is no longer room for improvement; it just means that you come from a place of love as you grow through life. Start where you are, then go forth.

IN OTHER WORDS:

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love & affection.” -Buddha
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”-Louise L. Hay
“Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself.” -Sri Sri Ravi Shankar