Is to say, "I love myself" selfish? Is it best to
say, "I love God" or "I love humanity and nature."
Long ago when I first heard, "you can't give what you don't have,” I thought it
selfish, navel gazing and self-seeking. But of course at the time I equated
love on how people felt and judged me. In other words "LOVE" was a
people-pleasing product I must become or strive for to feel loved or to love.
Then, as I thought and learned more about love and loving, I
realized that love is not a product or outcome. So does love include loving
those that abuse us? No, because that is not loving ourselves. How can we give
what we don’t have? Teach what we don’t know?

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal
life." Does this mean that we are to sacrifice our children for the good
of humanity? In 1 Corinthians 13:4–8a (New International Version) "Love is
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It
is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no
record of wrongs." Are we incapable of love if we fail to feel that
perfect love or loving? Gautama Buddha: “You, as much as anybody in the entire
universe, deserve your love and affection” and “In the end these things matter most: How well did you love?
How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go?”
So, do love God, humanity, and nature preclude loving
ourselves? How can we hate ourselves and love?
As I see it, love is not I love you or me because you are,
or I'm so beautiful. Love is what raises us out of self-loathing and into
loving. An open hand that holds a butterfly without crushing its wings. Love is
accepting others and us as who we are and moves us forward to what we want to
do and be in life. What say you?
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