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Today's
Meditation:
What
a self-centered way of looking at life, don't you
think? Friendship with ourselves? What can
that possibly mean? Isn't it the height of
egocentrism to want to be friends with ourselves?
Shouldn't we be focused on others, and helping them out?
Unfortunately,
we often learn when we're growing up that it is egocentric
to try to get to know ourselves and love ourselves.
Some people even see it as unnatural. But think of
this: are you more able to help others when you're
sick in bed with a fever, unable even to get up and walk,
or when you're healthy and sound and able to move about
and do things? The answer's pretty obvious.
When
we aren't friends with ourselves, we certainly do not
present a healthy role model for other people to
follow. I had a friend once who was so hard on
himself that I felt at times that he hated himself, and I
felt awful for him. The interesting thing about him,
though, was that he was always giving others advice on
what to do, how to feel, how to live. He knew
better, it seemed, and he wanted to tell others how to
live their lives. Nobody listened to him, though,
because they saw how unhappy with himself he was.
Logic tells us that taking advice from a miserable person
will make us miserable ourselves, doesn't it?
You
are a great person, a wonderful creation, and you deserve
to be treated well. First and foremost, though, you
deserve to be treated well by yourself. If
you don't do that, you're simply sabotaging any
possibility you have of helping others to feel better
about themselves.
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