Feature

Loving Yourself Just the Way You Are

Khandoker Asef Safa Kabir

In my life I have seldom met people who are really satisfied about themselves. Most of us incessantly regret our inabilities, whereas we hardly feel proud about the remarkable skills that we have. Similarly, we never cease to disparage ourselves by thinking about the coveted qualities that we are deprived of and in the process we fail to love ourselves for the awesome attributes that nature has endowed us with. In reality, we never accept ourselves as the way we are. Instead, we relentlessly try to become 'someone' or 'something' that can perhaps be regarded as nothing but the embodiment of an unrealistic ambition.

I really do not understand why we cannot accept our personality with all its imperfections. Despite the extensive emphasis on flawless perfection given by this materialistic civilization, it is certainly impossible to be perfect for a human being who is characterized by countless sensitive and flexible attributes. We often endeavor to be cool and aggressive in order to emerge as the best. We try to suppress our innate emotional urges that we consider as an obstacle in our way to the ultimate success. However, in the process we forget the inescapable fact that it is our inane, sentimental qualities that distinguish us from androids. We are sensitive, we are silly and we are unacceptably imperfect. These are actually our most distinctive human traits. We make countless mistakes. That is why we are not machines. Only programmed machines can be expected to produce perfect and predictable outputs. In contrast, perfection is a myth for human beings whose personalities can never be methodically encoded.

Then why do we always run after an elusive mirage called perfection? Why cannot we really love ourselves just the way we are? Why do we get frustrated about the imperfections and limitations that we have, despite being aware of the fact that we can never acquire most of those splendid qualities that we silently yearn for? We never cease to emulate others and in the process we begin to forget ourselves. The fundamental objective of our self-assessment should not be uncompromising self-criticism. Instead, it should enable us to discover our genuine personality so that we can courageously embrace it and adore it as it is. Only that is how we can possibly be honest to ourselves. I am not saying that there should not be a definite desire for constructive self-development in a person. I believe discovering our true self should subsequently make us know exactly how much we are capable of developing ourselves. However, this process of self-awareness must enable us to draw an apparent boundary representing the limit of our relevant capacities that our ambitious expectations must never cross. In that way, we might never get depressed by imagining 'what we are not' and 'what we cannot possibly turn into'. Instead, we should constantly be euphoric by understanding and accepting the significance of what we really have in ourselves. Subsequently, we should be able to view our limitations and imperfections not as a curse but as an exquisite blessing that makes us more human and facilitates the aspiration for realistic self-development. We must never forget that loving yourself is the first step towards loving the universe.

(Student of NSU)