“PRIORITIZING”
Love; the one word which for decades and centuries had only one meaning; Love between one heterosexual XY chromosome individual and another heterosexual XX chromosome individual. That perception has long changed and love now has branched out to have several definitions. It has moved on from being just a feeling, and has evolved into being an experience, a harmony, an emotion that can be expressed towards anybody irrespective of another’s sexual orientation. This article elaborates on the aspect of love that is still unattainable to many, including myself. Love towards one self or what is simplified as self-love. Reading books, watching movies, listening to songs about self-love are some of the easiest ways to experience what it feels like to truly appreciate one’s own self. However, the action itself isn’t as easy.
I have seen myself try several times a day to like myself, my actions, my achievements on that one day, observe myself doing something I enjoy doing and yet somehow that feeling of ‘never-enough’ manages to creep inside me once in a while, depriving me of fully and genuinely liking myself, far from loving myself. It took me a few years to understand that it is a process and that I must trust that process to notice the results. Self-love is certainly not a wave, whose purpose is served once it crashes onto the shore. It is the cultivation of a small seed which grows a small amount with each passing day, when provided with all the necessities of time, patience and space to fail above all. This not so complicated concept expresses itself on the daily in minute ways like when the coffee is just the right amount of sweet and bitter, when a particular painting looks much better after giving the risky finishing touches, when the uncertain recipe one decided to follow turns out better than expected, or even when one takes a different route back home and discovers a small bakery or a small quiet book store. As an artist, it gives me immense happiness when I can complete a painting and it looks exactly like how I had planned in my head. However, what I am yet to learn is to feel the same happiness when the painting does not go as I had planned in my head; but because I was able to complete it and because I had worked hard for it as well.
Self-love may also include self-improving activities like having a skin care routine that one follows, prepping one’s nails and painting them, making an appropriate hair mask and giving our self a home-spa, taking time out to cut oneself a bowl of fruits or preparing a smoothie, tidying up the ever-messy room or study table, learning an interesting dance routine we saw on social media, challenging oneself to make a piece of art using unusual modes, or maintaining a well decorated and hand crafted journal. Self-love could also include feeling connected to certain artists and their work, their music and lyrics, books and comics irrespective of what language the songs or books are written in. We can always translate the language and melody as we all know, has no language. I hold onto this bad habit of feeling guilty every time I flip to another page of a book or decide to listen to just one more song from the newly released album, instead of completing the academic assignments that seem to keep piling up. The guilt is partly result of the way I have been reared up to think that all the above mentioned activities were nothing but a waste of time; and partly because our education system somehow does not allow more than one hobby. If one is to allow them self to not work according to a pre-made timetable for a day, they must be well settled in life so as to not have doubled the work to perform the next day.
Self-love as a form of modern love isn’t talked about enough as it does not necessarily include another individual to complete this form of love. That is the aspect of it that makes it rare and unreachable for many like me. Feeling enough with oneself is, as mentioned earlier, a process of growth and not a miracle that occurs overnight. I am working on accepting some of these reasons for why I should choose ‘me time’ over activities I don’t actively enjoy.
