Love the One You're With

"Self-love widens into love of all that lives."

-- Miguel de Unamuno

If you can't love yourself, who can you love? No one, actually. You may think you do. You may have a strong attraction or attachment to them, but love only comes from love. Really loving yourself is, as philosophers say, both necessary and sufficient to truly loving others.

Here's what happens: In truly loving yourself, you tap into the universal pool of love. Love that begins with self eventually transcends self. It transcends self in part because you begin to realize that there is really no essential difference between yourself and others. Form fades, essence shines and the only real, honest response to essence is love.

And then a funny thing happens -- you start loving all the quirky forms, all the eccentric people, all the other crazy souls all around you. The very qualities that pissed you off earlier become endearing in the eyes of love. It's a figgin' transformation people! And "they" haven't changed, you've changed. You've finally learned to accept and love yourself, so you've finally learned to really accept and love others.

But it's all got to start sometime, somewhere and with someone. The time is now, the place is here, and that someone is you. The only thing missing is the somehow. The somehow begins within. You sit down, close your eyes, and shut up, and you begin to feel the love that you always have for yourself deep within. It may be a small trickle at first, but like a dowser of love, you find it and follow it to its source, to the deep underground springs of pure joy and compassion. 

Don't start with the mirror. Don't start with the externals, you'll just scare yourself. Always begin within. As the love within you begins to grow, your attitude towards the external you will change as well. And then, perhaps even more mysteriously, the external you will begin to transform. You will automatically begin to manifest love for yourself, for others, for the world. Awesome! Truly. And I'm not the kind of guy who uses "awesome" to describe the nachos at Applebees.

So, yea, Crosby, Stills and Nash were right -- "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with." And, you know, "the one you're with" is always you.