Marcus Aurelius

“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.” -Marcus Aurelius

This quote seems fitting for me since I’m working on self love. It seems like an easy concept; just love yourself, but for some reason I keep thinking and caring about what other people think of me. The fact remains, no one cares about anyone else because most of us are just worried about ourselves.

I feel like we love ourselves in the sense that we only care about ourself and our individual needs when we could be helping others more. In that way, I understand what Aurelius is saying, we don’t care enough for people yet we care so much for what they think about us.

We don’t care enough to be patient, kind, generous and supportive to people we know let alone people we don’t.

This reminds me of compliments.

I want them all the time to make up for the lack of compliments I got as a kid.

I don’t have positive self esteem in the way I would like but really, isn’t it up to me to fix that? Shouldn’t I be the one who compliments myself without expecting it from others?

I know that to be true but it’s taken me a long time to get there. I’m here now, almost.

I’d like to be more aware of my need for compliments compared to the amount of compliments I give other people.

I’m not sure I do that enough. To be honest, I usually compliment people I don’t know well instead of complimenting the people I love like my parents, my partner, my brother or my friends.

Is that a jealousy thing? Do I not want other people to feel good? If I don’t give compliments why should I expect to get them back? Am I waiting for them to give me a compliment first? Maybe.

I feel like the compliments I’m craving more than anything are from the people I love. I’m just realizing that I also only really receive compliments from people I’m not close to.

I don’t remember the last time I got a compliment from the people closest to me but I get compliments about my look, my personality and my work ethic from other people all the time.

I’m going to make more of an effort to compliment the people I love. If I want it, they must want it too.

-Dawn Rochelle ♡