Love is a cliche, love is overrated some say. Love, the one thing that we all talk about, the feeling which we wish to feel.
We often say, OMG!! I love those shoes!
I just love chocolates…
I love me some nice margarita!
Aren’t these the things which we say often? We love so many things. Things around us, things about us. But do we really love these things? Or is it love for the feeling of love? Are we just souls who are deprived of love and hence try to seek it from every little thing around us?
We love the idea of love, being in love, felt loved and hence this longing for love. We love so many things because there is an underlying unfulfilled desire to feel it. Call it the conditioning due to our culture, media or society we are made to value “love” as one of the most important assets. An asset which dictates our behaviour and a lot of our decisions..think of all the things you’ve done in the past to win the love of your favourite ones or all the compromises you have done to sustain that ‘L’ in a relationship.
Why is it important you ask? The famous theory of “needs”, the Maslow’s hierarchy, states that love is one of the primary needs of a man. But, what we most often forget is for us to be loved, one needs to love themselves. We are not taught or told to love and appreciate ourselves. We are only taught to love things and people around us to feel the emotion. We try to seek this from the materialistic things around us, which give us an instant gratification and this gratification feels really good but lasts for a short span of time and does not fulfil our need to be felt secure. No matter how over-rated the term self love is, it is essential. In an age where we are under constant pressure – pressure from the society, from family and most importantly, pressure from one’s own self – to look good, to earn well, to live comfortably, and to excel in everything, we often dwell into a lot of self doubt and criticism, so much so that we forget to take a moment to look at how far we have come. Love ourselves for all that we have done.
Lack of self-love makes us fantasise the idea of love and fall for every mediocre thing in life that makes us feel even slightly close to what we want to be felt.
Perhaps, we should invest in not just things and people but in ourselves, in hobbies that make us feel confident and competent, in practices that reduce our self-doubt and increase our self-worth, in relationships that are fulfilling and rich.
So, let us not just love the idea of love but also give ourselves some. Embrace and nurture every inch of our bodies and minds.