Loving yourself is not neglecting yourself

One of the many phrases that has gained traction in the last few years is the motto "Love Yourself", and this can seem pretty harmless and innocent at first glimpse, and under the right interpretations, It can be, though this is far from the way people see It. Even If the intention of the message "accepting yourself" is great for people who have problems about their self worth when there's nothing wrong to them, that same I'm good as a I am mentality can prove dangerously hurtful when a person uses It to excuse him/herself from becoming better by doing uncomfortable things, preferring to stick to destructive habits like watching TV or eating junk food while scrolling through their feeds. That's why in this article I will point three ways in which this common saying can be taken out of context to just isolate you from the pathway to success and live in the doom of comfort. Let's begin:

It masks the worrying things

Eating chips and binge watching series is not precisely loving yourself, as your mind will surely enter in conflict subconsciously with the act of sedentarism and overconsumption that's contrary to your nature as a human being, taking It more as a signal that something's really bad. In fact, the reasons for why you might be doing these things can be just the opposite from what the phrase preachs, hating yourself for the things you're doing and keeping a constant positive feedback loop of unhealthy behavior.

It becomes a excuse to not improve

One day you might see someone you feel attracted to smile back at you. However, you end up not talking to him/her because of the fear of rejection, so you use to reason with yourself that there's only time to love yourself, using many coping mechanisms to make It feel not so bad, repeating the same cycle over and over, not only with social interactions, though with demanding tasks that have a minimal component of risk and a great reward for doing It, all because of fear so you just decide to accept the gruesome reality in which you live and not move a finger to make your situation better.

It makes you lonely

Maybe the most worrying thing of all and very correlated with the example in the past point. More people than ever find themselves counting friends with just one hand and they stay like that for relative long periods of time. Even If this is a sad reality, they decide to do nothing at all about that, preferring to stay in the comfort of their homes doing the same thing and not meeting new people, even If It is through Internet, to create connections. That's again because of the misinterpretation that "Love Yourself" might entangle, twisting the meaning of It to the advantage of your lower self, making you believe that the first thing is to love yourself before you can even think to love others and hide again from the uncomfortable position of being rejected.

I hope that this article could have raised some awareness to the fact that interpreting messages in a self serving manner can create a greater damage than the good It initially pretended to provide, motivating you to subject your beliefs to deep scrutinity to see If they are really making you improve or are pushing you backwards; all so you can be the best version of yourself. Thank you for your support and good luck!