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Am I ?

Am I?


Somebody asked, "Am I beautiful?"


Typically anyone would answer by saying that looks do not matter and that you are beautiful from the inside, etc.

Somebody else may ask/say/think, "Am I good (or bad)?, Am I Intelligent or smart? Etc.

The moot point is why do we need to be beautiful or good or bad or intelligent?

We don't. Period.

We actually do not need to be anything. We can just be ourselves.

And we are neither beautiful nor good nor intelligent.

Others (or we) may consider our looks, actions or persona to be any of the above, but those are just ephemeral adjectives!

Obviously, we have a choice if we want to put it onto ourselves or others.


Some of us think that these adjectives are important and not only constantly and in vain, try to catch these adjectives, but also end up looking at these in others - making both ours and others' lives miserable.

Once we are free of any such adjectives, we can respond to each situation, request, need, etc from our own objectivity rather than trying to make up to these or any images.


Someone's t-shirt read, "I Love Myself"



My question is do we really need to? In any case, how does one love oneself? Does one like oneself, or respect oneself, or admire, or treat kindly or praise or what? Also what if I do not think that I love myself? Is it wrong? Do I become less than myself or less than others or I become unhappy? Is it another label that we want to run after. 

Personally I neither love myself nor hate myself. I may like some of my actions, I may not like some. I may admire something that I did, I may disdain something else. But all of these neither need or lead me to love myself nor hate myself. 

Maybe it might benefit me (and others, especially children) if we detach any labels from the self. After all, I am constantly changing, every moment has the potential for me to be reborn.


Sometimes I observe people thinking that saying 'I love myself', builds self-love.

Two points here - by merely saying are we building a label or a genuine feeling inside me. If the idea is to communicate that I am unique, I am special, I am imperfectly perfect then we can specifically talk about those ideas. Because, when I say I love myself, and then on some occasions, because of my own actions, I am feeling shit - then what? I have a double problem - one I am not feeling love for myself and two I am desperately trying to live up to this expectation of loving myself.

Do we really need self love or we need self understanding?

Now understanding is a doable thing - I can invest observation, awareness, analysis, reflection, self evaluation etc to understand myself in detail. Also I can take feedback of others in various ways to add to my self-understanding. And I guess as I invest in understanding myself, I can relate to my needs, wants, thoughts, feelings, actions, past, future, ambitions, fears, beliefs … myself!

And when I do that, do I really need to love myself?


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