The issue with the present, trending concept of self-love is that it is selfish and exclusive. It has no regard for the collective. It looks out for self, and stops there. It’s just as dysfunctional as conformity, which places the whole before the self, which prevents love from ever being fully formed. It is also anxious. It doesn’t take into consideration that sowing and reaping are not simultaneous.
This new age self-love demands instantaneous pleasure from all others, and when not received, others are immediately cut off. They allude that they are protecting their energy, but that’s just a cover for their personal fear. Perfect love casts out all fear, so if you’re afraid of someone overtaking your energy, you not only don’t love them, but you don’t actually love yourself.
Understand, however, that this isn’t the same as using wisdom. In recognizing that two people are not seeking the same end, moving in the same direction, it becomes necessary, in love, to allow the other individual to go the way they have chosen. When you are just tired of waiting on someone to arrive at the place you feel they should be, that’s not wisdom. That’s pure arrogance.
People forget that they didn’t arrive at the place of power they are presently in without much tribulation. The same patience you learned to show yourself in discovering self-love must be shown others to realize perfect love.
If you truly love, and are not just infatuated, that love is bouyed by acceptance and understanding. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. If not these things, it isn’t love.
