2020 has been a tough year!
The outside world is chaos. The economy is a roller coaster. Coronavirus is raging and has kept us quarantined. The election was the most tense and overwhelming nail-biter of all. The environment might just be on the verge of cataclysm. And to top it all off, people everywhere fiercely (and increasingly violently) disagree about where humanity should be headed.
My inner world has also been tumultuous and topsy-turvy. I feel low, I feel high, I feel numb. I’m nervous and anxious about what the future holds. So much of what I thought was true I no longer believe. I’m drained and exhausted. At the same time, my love for my children and my wife has grown to new heights. And somehow I remain an unshakeable optimist. Somehow I still believe that all people are inherently good.
How can one make sense of this?
Honestly, I have no idea. But as 2020 comes to a close, a simple phrase keeps running through my mind that brings me comfort: Love thyself.
So many times I’ve heard how important it is to know thyself. I agree. Self-knowledge is illuminating. It helps you understand what you want from life and what makes you happy.
Throughout the years I’ve worked hard to learn about who I am and how the world works. But here’s the thing: I know so very little. In fact, if I know anything at all, it’s that I know almost nothing. Life and its meaning remain a complete mystery to me.
But love thyself rings so true.
Deep down I know it’s what I want and what I need.
I want to love and accept myself for exactly who I am, in exactly the circumstances that I’m in. Because if I don't, all the self-knowledge in the world won’t mean a thing.
I recently came upon this quote from Alan Watts and it really resonated with me:
The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
I feel like I’m always rushing around in a great panic. My whole life I’ve been rushing to achieve things. Achieving in school, achieving in my career. Constantly working on myself, trying to better myself, to improve my capabilities and my value to the world. And thankfully I’ve had much success.
But there’s been a huge cost to this. By constantly choosing to better myself I’ve missed so many opportunities to love who I am at that moment and just enjoy my short time alive.
The real tragedy, though, is that I’ve always felt that I need to better myself. Said another way, I’ve always felt that I’m not good enough exactly as I am.
Sometimes the more I get to know myself, the less I love myself. I get to know my flaws and hangups and I hate them.
I hate that I’m imperfect. I hate that I’ve made big mistakes in the past and that I continue to make mistakes everyday. I hate that I’m not nearly as personable and funny and generous as I want to be. I hate that I’m needy and melancholy and hard to please.
What’s the point of achievement if I hate myself?
And so I return to love thyself.
As this most difficult year ends and a new one begins, I commit to love myself.
Life is so hard and so fragile. I will be easier on myself, and I will do my best to support myself and soothe myself.
I will teach my children to love themselves for exactly who they are, to accept their limitations and to cherish their uniqueness.
And I will spread this simple and most important message:
Love thyself.