The person in the world who loves me the most is me, and the person in the world that I love the most is me. (For the purposes of this post I'm not differentiating between amore, agape and other types of love, although I understand that this may be a dangerous simplifying assumption.) I've thought about why this is the case and have come up with several possible theories:
- I have not been sufficiently successful at loving others, due to a lack of ability and/or effort.
- When I was younger I felt that I wasn't loved by others as much as I would've liked, and so as a coping mechanism I relegated it to secondary importance behind self-love.
- Consciously or subconsciously, I determined that loving myself was safer than loving others, and in an overabundance of caution opted for the safe (but not necessarily the best) route.
- I have worked hard to learn to love myself, and succeeded.
- I have worked hard to become the kind of person I could love, and succeeded.
- To know me is to love me, and I know me better than anyone else.
- I have an inflated sense of self-worth.
Some of these are interrelated, and I think the correct explanation is a combination of several of these theories.
Should such a condition be envied or pitied? Certainly, the ideal situation is to love yourself a lot, have others who love you a lot, and love others a lot (ideally with the "others" in the latter two groups being the same people). The three are obviously not mutually exclusive, and in many cases they're positively correlated. But if a person can't optimize for all three, which is most desirable (that is, most likely to lead to a well-lived life)?
- I have not been sufficiently successful at loving others, due to a lack of ability and/or effort.
- When I was younger I felt that I wasn't loved by others as much as I would've liked, and so as a coping mechanism I relegated it to secondary importance behind self-love.
- Consciously or subconsciously, I determined that loving myself was safer than loving others, and in an overabundance of caution opted for the safe (but not necessarily the best) route.
- I have worked hard to learn to love myself, and succeeded.
- I have worked hard to become the kind of person I could love, and succeeded.
- To know me is to love me, and I know me better than anyone else.
- I have an inflated sense of self-worth.
Some of these are interrelated, and I think the correct explanation is a combination of several of these theories.
Should such a condition be envied or pitied? Certainly, the ideal situation is to love yourself a lot, have others who love you a lot, and love others a lot (ideally with the "others" in the latter two groups being the same people). The three are obviously not mutually exclusive, and in many cases they're positively correlated. But if a person can't optimize for all three, which is most desirable (that is, most likely to lead to a well-lived life)?
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