Knowing your value and loving yourself

A wise man once said ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. The sentiment behind this statement is one which I am sure the majority of people agree with. Indeed living this out forms the foundation of a healthy society. Whilst it is easy to agree with the statement, putting it into action daily is the hard part. 

A close friend commented to me recently that the key to this is in the second part, to love others as you love yourself. My instant reaction to that was it seems somewhat selfish. However the more I have reflected on it, the more I see it is true.  

We live in an interesting time in history. A time where through social media we publish more about ourselves than probably at any other time in history. 

A time where arguably the most popular photo is the selfie. 

According to research by Samsung the average millennial will take 25,000 selfies in their life, which is approximately one every day. That being an average, it means a significant number of people will take many more than that!

Does all this focus on ourselves mean we love ourselves more than ever before? I would argue not. In fact I would argue we love ourselves less than in other times in history. 

Research by Dove in 2017 pointed out that 61% of 10 to 17-year-old girls in the UK have low self-esteem and according to the office for national statistics in 2018 the UK male suicide rate of 17.2 deaths per 100,000 represented a significant increase from the rate in 2017. 

These are just a couple of sad statistics which suggest we don’t generally love ourselves well. 

We live in an age of constant comparison. Companies want us to compare ourselves with celebrities and online influencers to buy products they are promoting. We compare ourselves with our friends and family members through the things they post about themselves on social media. 

Yet what we are shown is almost always the best bits of their lives and presents us with an inaccurate and highly edited view of people around us which can lead us to feel less successful, less beautiful, less valuable and generally love ourselves less. 

We are designed to know love. To be loved and to correctly love and value ourselves. When we know we are worth something we see more clearly that other people are too and we treat them better as a result. 

When we try to love others and we don’t know we are loved it leads to jealousy, frustration and can fester into bitterness. All ensuring we can’t genuinely love others at all. As someone once said, ‘you can’t give what you haven’t got’.

The next time you look in the mirror, really look. Recognise you are unique. As a result you are valuable and choose to love yourself. 

The wise man who made the statement to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ was actually Jesus. Directly before he said this, he is quoted as saying ‘love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength’. 

To love others is hard. To love yourself can be even harder. I don’t really believe it is enough to just choose to love yourself. I believe that love has to come from somewhere and it is my belief that to love yourself you have to know you are loved. This may be true in the relationships you have with people. 

In fact I hope it is and this is tremendously valuable. However there is one who loves you unconditionally and always has. It is in loving God and knowing his love for you that you can then love yourself and truly love others.