Love Yourself as Yourself

by Aliza Davidovit
We are certainly living in tough economic times and indeed many people have lost a lot. But this article is meant to take a more positive look at current events because even though many people have lost much of what they “have” they didn’t lose who they are. And if they think they did—they have it all wrong.

In the spirit of Valentines, I want to talk about love.

There is not a religion that does not preach “to love your neighbor as yourself.”

But just let us say we hate ourselves, does that give us license to treat our neighbor wrongly, meanly, abusively?

That religious tenet is predicated on the belief that we actually love ourselves.

So I question whether there is so much hate displayed toward each other in the world today because on some level most people hate themselves. Or HOW they love themselves is completely wrong.

For the many who don’t know me, I’m a journalist who has interviewed the who’s who for quite some years now. I have had the opportunity to meet billionaires to heads of state, from prime ministers to musicians. I have met them on their way up and some on their way down. I’ve seen them humble and often way too haughty. And what I have observed up close and personal is how many of these people (and not just them) come to define themselves and love themselves for what they own and their titles and their status. Many of them are hiding under the banners of success because they don’t love themselves enough to stand alone. Get into a conversation with anyone and within five seconds they ask you what you do for a living and vice versa. We have all become so impressed by external trappings that we come to mistake those things for who we really are. By our affiliations and titles we convince ourselves of our own greatness. And then some sad day comes along, such as today’s economic hardships, and all the materialistic things that have come to define us are swept away. And so many find themselves with an identity crisis and don’t quite know who they are or if they are worthy of love. They sink into depressions because they don’t have that business card to give out anymore that says, Vice President of Shmendriks Incorporated. And in order to hang onto their status and titles, or to secure them, many behave dishonestly, and they lose the better part of themselves for illusory gains. When you sacrifice the better part of yourself for success, how can you still love yourself? And if you love what's fake about you, how can you ever love what's real, authentic and simple in another?

All of life today feels like an American Idol contest or reality TV show with only one person who makes it to the top and everyone else, well, is considered the loser—not good enough. So no wonder we walk around paranoid, jealous, self hating and frequenting psychologists. And then we go to the book stores and therein we find thousands of books each book selling you on how to be the best lover, the best wife, the best cook, the best talker, the best YOUTUBE star, the best con artist. Basically what these books are saying is that we are not good enough—we have to be the best—and so again we walk away with a broken spirit because at the end of the day we are not the best computer-savvy-sweet-talking gourmet cook who’s awesome in bed and can sell anybody anything and earn $15 million if we study chapter 4 on “how to be the best at everything at all times by Wednesday morning.” There is a much better book that came out a long time ago called the Bible and maybe, if more people read it, they’d get back to the core and really become the “best” person they could be.

I am by no means diminishing ambition, the desire to succeed or success itself. But I really feel we have turned toward false gods and now that they have let us down, we are crumbling.

During these very hard economic times each of us should take a much more loving look at ourselves and realize that all the materialistic things we own, or don’t own, and the lofty positions we have held or have never held, are not what make us, US…And if you think they do—then you don’t really love yourself or know yourself.

Ask any survivor of the January airplane crash if they were thinking about their cars, their money or their jobs as their plane was plummeting into the Hudson. One guy even took off his pants after they crashed because he thought it would help him survive. I truly believe that when each of us will truly learn to love ourselves for who we are only then can we really love anyone else.

Don’t forget, the greatest people in history left us not golden treasures, but pearls of wisdom and a legacy of love.

There are those who say that when a person dies and goes before the heavenly court on his day of judgment, he is not asked why he wasn’t as good as Moses was, or as Jesus was, or Ghandi was, he is simply asked, why weren’t you as good as YOU could be. If you enter that contest you are sure to be, the next American Idol.