To me, Love is never a difficult thing to do.

You don’t need a reason to Love, and you certainly don’t need to ask anything in return from the people you love. The concept of Love is so abstract yet so straight forward that I rarely put deep thought on it.

“Isn’t love just a simple equation that two people putting in same amount of love and stay happy forever?”

In my perfect world, everyone just love everyone, and as result we are all just bathing in each other’s love. All happy and cheerful; no hatred and sadness.

Unfortunately, often time, reality doesn’t work like this. Even when you are sincerely loving a person, that individual could be loathing you as return. Even when you are doing everything you could to care and make a person’s life better, that individual could mistaken your intention into something negative. Even when you are trying to be friends with a person, that individual might walk around and tell people that you hated he or she. In this case, love seems to just be a reason bring people pain and sorrow. What’s more frustrated than believing you are loving other people while all you received are intimation and hatred?

Yet, no one is the blame for situation like this. Human are complicate creatures with intelligent minds and sophisticate emotions. There are a million and one ways on how we receive the message and quite often that two minds do not function and react in the exact same way. No party in this case are evil, there is just simply the lack of communications and differences in personalities. Nevertheless, even knowing this, I still cannot help to feel defeated when my love is under appreciate to the receiving individuals.

Indeed, the under appreciation hurt, but this doesn’t stop me from loving those people the way I used to. Stubbornly, I believe if I love them a lot, a Lot, a LOT, and A LOT. Maybe, one day, I just loved them enough that they could start appreciate me and love me just a little bit back. Perhaps, this idea seems stupid to you, and I admit it is kinda navies and probably not the most healthy relationship you want for your life. Yet, even knowing the toxic part of this relationship routine, I found myself looping back to the same group of people and not being able to let go.

As time past, I found myself stuck in this depression pattern of Unhealthy-Love-Relationship (ULR). Starting off with me liking a person when we first met. Later, the like slowly develop into true caring and loving. Found out the receiver think otherwise or take me for granted and didn’t appreciate my present. Get frustrated on my own, which not only hurt my health both mentally and physically, but have the potential in damaging my other worthy and healthy relationships. Calm down and giving the receiver the benefit of doubt that I should try harder. After trying and receiving the same result and the depressed feeling appear all over again.

To Love yourself is to understand that you Don’t need to be perfect to be Good.

— unknown.

Well, its not until my last year in college that I finally learn the term “self-love.” I have always heard about it but, never really think and reflect this concept on myself. I always thought I loved myself and I know what self-love represent. I mean, I always eat what I want, wear the clothes I love and do things that makes me laugh and happy. Isn’t this what self-love is about? to stay happy?

Perhaps, doing thing that will cheer you up and taking good care of yourself are important factors in achieving self-love. However, those actions are more of a self-care process rather than truing loving yourself. There isn’t an only and right definition on self-loving, but in my understanding and in simple words self love is put yourself first.

To put yourself first doesn’t mean to be an ego person and thinking that the world is surrounding you. To put yourself first by knowing your need and prioritizing the necessary things in your life; meanwhile, still be mindful and continue caring for people around you. I know, this sounds really confusing because *confession, I don’t know how to clearly separately “putting yourself first” and “selfishness” as well.

But, to think about it, I think selfishness is to have thing in your way and show your anger and frustrations to the surrounding friends when things doesn’t go as you have pictured. On the other hand, prioritize your need is a thoughtful act not only to you, but also to your friends. Because you are ensuring your happiness before putting in effort in dealing with life drama. In my experience, any activities associated with people, even the fun ones like getting food or watching movie could be very energy draining. Without a stable and positive energy in your system you could often overwork yourself and result in bad mood and harm yourself and your friends unintentionally.

Nonetheless, I am still exercising the self-love activities on daily based. Though the process is going pretty slow right now because I still put other people’s need before me, I think my life is heading toward a better start. At least, right now my life doesn’t have life drama or extreme emotional swings. So… yay me for step toward improvement even with a tiny step.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. If you have any thought on self-love or tips on practicing it leave a comment below ❤️