Introduction

Once upon a time, I got tired of my people (read: my mother) telling me that I’m not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, too fat, too skinny, too stubborn, too stupid to do anything.  As I’ve pointed out in my other blog, I see a lot of hate in the world. We’re always hating on each other, on each other’s beliefs, on the things we like and don’t like. But the worst hate of all is self-hate.

 I decided I wanted some therapy. My therapist says I should stay away from poisonous influences in my life, but there are some influences (read: my mother) that you can neither escape nor seem to want to. My own self-image is also something that is nearly impossible to escape.

A few years ago I had a teacher who told me that every morning I should look in the mirror and give myself a compliment. It worked for like, a week, tops. It’s a nearly impossible task not because I run out of compliments or anything, but because I forget. It’s six in the freaking AM! I’m too tired to think of why I like my hair; I just want it to stay in a ponytail!

So I’ve decided to start a blog: for the next year, every day I will [try] to post something that I like about myself.  Some days I might forget (see above) or maybe I can’t upload what I wrote because the internet is still a finicky magical being at my house rather than a defined resource. But I want to be able to love myself.

Love is a tricky thing. Like all great feats, it takes practice. After all, you do not simply wake up one morning knowing how to love someone. You don’t look across the room and immediately know how and how much you love that man over there. Love takes practice. It is no wonder that self-love would also take time and practice.

I’m not doing this alone either. There are other people like me who want someone to tell them their pretty, smart, brave, strong, smell good, have nice hair or a cute blouse. We should be willing to compliment ourselves as much as we are willing to compliment others. Even though we live in a society that tells us that vanity is wrong, we create a bubble around ourselves where positive thinking and good self-image is treated as a negative aspect of the human psyche. She thinks she’s pretty, god how vain. She’s so skinny, she must be bulimic. He has a nice job and drives a nice car, he’s probably Republican.

Tomorrow I want to look in the mirror and feel a little better about who I am. The day after that, I want to feel even better about who I have been. Soon, the mirror won’t even be necessary anymore.

I cannot truly love another if I hate myself.