Be You to Love You

I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not.* The real hope is to be loved for exactly who we are, yet it starts with us. We must learn to appreciate our true selves before anyone else can but, in our desire to connect, we may find ourselves going along to get along. People pleasing, avoiding conflict, self-doubt – whatever the reason – hesitating to be ourselves will leave us feeling uneasy anyhow. It also makes it harder to know ourselves, much less love ourselves; it’s harder for anyone to know us.. How can we find similar souls unless we let others see who we really are?

full printable size available via my Pinterest

“It is better to be hated for what you are
than to be loved for something you are not.”

— André Gide

Being loved is good, being loved for the right reasons is better, and being able to love yourself is the best. When we’re true to ourselves, to our convictions, we become more confident. Each time we choose to be real instead of play it safe, we learn more about who we are and who we want to be. That’s where the power, passion, freedom, and joy come in; the excitement of existing lies in being unique, and we all are! Every chance you get, learn something new about yourself by choosing what feels right for you. Nothing compares to being you so remember:

“Be yourself. If you water yourself down to please people or to fit in or to not offend anyone, you lose the power, the passion, the freedom and the joy of being uniquely you. It’s much easier to love yourself when you are being yourself.”

— Dan Coppersmith, co-author of The Self-Esteem Playbook

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*Used by Kurt Cobain in his suicide note, this paraphrase of André Gide’s quotation is frequently attributed to Cobain.