Love and All Its Meanings

How can one word mean so much in many ways? Love for family, friends, a partner, and then there's also our love for our hobbies, experiences and memories.

Such a short word that's so easy to remember. We say it regularly, mostly for the most irrelevant reasons. We do also express it for the people that we feel it for, but I say we don't do it enough and there are reasons for that.

We're so busy with our lives, and we get so caught up with the things that stress us out that I think we forget. We forget to appreciate the people and things that are already in our lives. Sometimes, we become too focused on tasks that we 'have' to do. Most importantly, we forget to appreciate ourselves, hence everyone and everything else.

Love isn't just about taking care of people who are important to us. It's not just about prioritizing them and making sure that they are happy.

Love for yourself

It's also about love for ourselves. Before we can love another person or anything else for that matter, we need to learn how to love ourselves truly. Otherwise, we'd never feel satisfied with our lives and all of the achievements that we have accomplished. We may feel like we're not good enough for another person's love, and we might get caught up in our insecurities and project our issues onto others. We could be surrounded by people who love us but still feel extremely alone.

If you are having trouble loving yourself, it can lead to difficulties in accepting other people's love.

Everyone has their insecurities, and as humans, we always will. It's a never-ending list. We may be more than good enough for others but not notice it because we're not good enough for ourselves. But this is something that we must overcome. As the saying goes:

"Nobody's perfect."

This phrase can be defined in many ways and can be used to motivate or destroy another person.

But I'll say this, we will always be striving for perfection. The only time that we'll achieve perfection is when we have learned to love ourselves, accept other people's love and return it. Perfection, for me, is that feeling of euphoria because of all the love that we have in our lives.

We'll always have goals in different areas of our lives, our personal growth, our relationships with other people and our career. And that's the thing, there will always be room for growth, for all of us. We'll never truly be 'dictionary' perfect because there is no such thing. It does not exist. Not one version of a human being will be perfect for everyone. I mean, even Australians and Americans spell words differently!

Your idea of perfect will not be the same as anyone else's, so don't ever compare and don't be affected by those who do. When or if somebody insults you because of your looks or if they say that you're not good enough in any way, just think, maybe they're just having a bad day. Don't let it put you down, but at the same time, don't repeat the cycle on them or other people. Show love and kindness where there's none.

My favourite saying is:

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

This could not be truer. What I find beautiful, you may find average or ugly. Personalities that I may prefer you may also like or find boring. We may have similarities with each other and others, but we will always have our specific preferences.

You may find someone that you think is better than you, but someone else may find you better than them. There's always going to be a new 'trending' style, body shape, 'look' or whatever it is that spreads throughout social media.

So you, reader, are somebody's version of perfect. Therefore, you should love yourself, focus on growing instead of comparing yourself against others and becoming more like them.

You're an original, don't be anyone's copy.