If there is anything that I have struggled with the most when going to college, it's that your willingness and your wanting to love others, goes down. Since becoming a college student, I have found it more difficult to love others. I found that I couldn't put my finger on it and that I didn't know as to why it was becoming so much more difficult to love others. And then, I figured it out.
I couldn't learn to love others until I learned to love myself.
Going to college is hard. It's not like in the movies where you immediately find yourself surrounded by people who are your best friends. I found that that's not the case. When I went to college, I saw how much harder it was to make friends and how much harder it was to do the things that you did by second nature back at home. These were the days when my self confidence went down. I couldn't go out and I couldn't stand the thought of someone seeing me and thinking something of me. After a while, I couldn't find that peace and reassurance to love others continually. I got myself in to such a rut I honestly didn't know what to do with myself anymore.
Over the next few months, I figured out that in order to love others, I needed to first love my self. I had lost so much self confidence and self love that I had become a different person. I had become someone that I didn't like. I would be walking to class not feeling like I should and wanting nothing more than just to go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day. I felt like I was doing nothing more than just passing the days away.
Here's the thing. Jesus didn't call us to just pass the days away. He called us to go out and be the better version of ourselves each and every day. He gets that we're not perfect. He knows that. He loves us anyways. He also knows that we are worth loving.
Everyone now a days, are so concerned with getting known on social media. I get that. They make fools of other people to somehow show that they're superior to others. This is where everything goes downhill for most. They don't love themselves the way they should. When you are truly at peace with yourself, you wouldn't feel the need to go out and make everyone else feel like they are the most unloved people to ever walk the earth. That is not the goal here. We should be lifting people up and making them feel like somebody. We should make them feel like they can truly be at peace with themselves. Make it to where they can love themselves.
It's sort of like a chain reaction. Others love themselves, they love others, those others love themselves. It only starts with one person. And thats you.
Much Love Always. - Addison
