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You have to love yourself before you can love someone else - true?

thesoundofmotion

Bluelighter
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
104
Anytime I bring up my longing to be with someone I sometimes get the response "you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else". People really hold onto this motto as it were true but is it really true?

Do you believe that you have to love yourself before you can love someone else? I'm sure it helps to feel satisfied with yourself but that doesn't mean you can't love others even if you don't love yourself.

And couldn't be argued that you can actually find love for yourself by loving others? Couldn't be argued that there really is no other and loving yourself and loving others is perhaps the same thing?

What are your thoughts on the validity or truth to this statement?
 
the statement is invalid, it is not necessary for you to love yourself to love someone else. This of course depends on the definition of love.

It can be interpreted as meaning something like having self-confidence, self acceptance or love for your self will allow you to open yourself up to others and find someone to love you and in turn you love them back. Maybe there's some truth to that but it's not necessarily so IMO.

With other definitions it doesn't make a whole lot of sense lol.

love

sexual passion or desire.
 
In a sense its true. You yourself can't really fully love another while you are disgusted and loathsome of yourself. Loathing takes focus which steals it away from the amount of love your giving out. Besides you need to learn how to love another person adequately anyways. Anyone can just blurt out that they love something, but when you really love something you cherish it with your entire being and do all you can to let no harm or undue stress come to it. Thats not a trait learned easily. I think people often confuse love and hatred with like and dislike. Hatred and love are two of the strongest emotions. All things can be skewered however.....
 
its like in a airplane when they say you have to put your air mask on before putting it on someone else in case of a crash
or in music they said that you signal is gonna be a good as your weakest link
or a punch is gonna be as good as your legs
its basic dynamics that the healthier you can be the healthier the relation can be
or that the more you have, the more you can give
doesnt mean you cant love someone else, or that you should work on yourself before getting inside a relationship

a lot of people also use that line as to say why would anyone care about you if you yourself cant even do it

so the microcosm of your relationship with yourself is representative of the macrocosm of your relationship with other

but i think that receiving love can make you learn how to love yourself too
so if someone is in a situation where its easier to love someone else than themself
it could be good to end up in a relationship where his partner does the same, and through that mutual love they both might learn and discover how to love themself
 
I think what is meant by having to "love yourself" first before you can truly love someone else is that you have to be comfortable with yourself. When you have to get approval from the outside you are usually not really loving the other person, just needing them.
 
^ right. i think a lot of people who are 'lonely' (for want of a better term) desperately want to meet somebody because they think that will fill a hole in their life and it's the piece of the puzzle which will make them happy. i think that's a shaky foundation for a relationship and is part of what the saying means.

alasdair
 
This topic is totally true, you must be able to love yourself before you can show someone what love really is. This goes hand in hand with "You have to be happy, before you can make anyone else happy". Love and happiness are gifts that we as humans give to one another. They are very spiritual and what we use to show emotions between one another. There isn't anything stronger emotions other than love and happiness.
 
I think it's bogus. I very deeply hate myself, like everything about myself but I truly unconditionally love my son, his father, my family and my sons fathers family. I also believe that 'you can actually find love for yourself by loving others'. The more I'm with people and helping them and loving them the more self love seeps in.
 
I think it's bogus. I very deeply hate myself, like everything about myself but I truly unconditionally love my son, his father, my family and my sons fathers family. I also believe that 'you can actually find love for yourself by loving others'. The more I'm with people and helping them and loving them the more self love seeps in.

I think thats great that you put your family before anything (including yourself). And I'm sure you have a heart of gold, but when you think of it like that you are right in every sense. But when you think of it another way or "outside the box" you could say we only get one life to live, we were all put here for a reason. To experience emotions, scenes, and what not. While your on this earth you should find it inside of you to love yourself for once. You can love other people, but you will get more out of life when you find and love yourself.
 
you could say we only get one life to live, we were all put here for a reason. To experience emotions, scenes, and what not. While your on this earth you should find it inside of you to love yourself for once.
that is really beautifully put.

alasdair
 
i'd say it's not true, but it comes with a catch. when i fell in love for the first time, it made me love myself for the first time in maybe 10 years. i'm pretty sure the two things happened at the exact same time, but i can't be positive. to make things even stranger, it was unrequited, and yet i love myself still, over five years on again. loves a strange thing.
 
Love is a word that I find inadequate to describe the entire spectrum of respect, longing, and emotion. I think we are getting mired in the simplicity of a stupid phrase. Cant we see the forest through the trees?

The Big Lebowski: What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?
The Dude: Dude.
The Big Lebowski: Huh?
The Dude: Uhh... I don't know sir.
The Big Lebowski: Is it being prepared to do the right thing, whatever the cost? Isn't that what makes a man?
The Dude: Hmmm... Sure, that and a pair of testicles.
 
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