Love yourself first…
In the past, when I was a kid, it was cool to be FLY! Flying at the time was a slang term that meant you were smart, cool, cute, and ready to take on the world. We use that word the way young people today use the SLAY world. I guess each generation has their own style of communication in jargon, but I still use Fly from time to time.
As I got older, I adopted a new acronym for the slang term FLY. I call it FLY, which stands for Love Yourself First. In today’s society, it seems so acceptable to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good. It’s okay for us to be in debt, miserable, rude, overworked, and aggressive toward others. We are physically and mentally exhausted, and it seems right to be impatient or demanding. People are so insensitive to the needs of others these days that they think it’s “normal” to be like this. It is not normal to be broken and unhappy. It is not normal to feel that our lives are irrelevant. Going through life in a zombie state of just working to pay the bills and dying is the most abnormal thing I can think of. Somehow, I think we’ve gotten off track. All this way humanity has changed is not for our betterment. We are digressing at an alarming rate as a society and we must, as the young say, “wake up.”
A lot of people would probably blame social media for the failure of communication between us, but I think that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I think we need to be repaired in our spirit. I think we are all suffering in some way. Some of us just cover it up better than others. We should consider going back to being FLY! We need to love ourselves again and not feel guilty about it. We all need free time, me time or some time to pamper ourselves in every way so that we can appreciate and create healthy relationships. I think we have to slow down and start giving ourselves the opportunity to discover the happiness that is within our reach because we all deserve it. We should love each other enough to receive joy in our lives again so that we can give our best to society. The disintegration that we are witnessing in human relationships today is in my opinion; tied to our not being able to fully communicate our emotional needs. We have forgotten that it is totally okay to be a little selfish and love ourselves. We need to relearn how to meet our own needs mentally, spiritually, and physically. Embracing wholeness and tapping into inner peace should be a lifelong endeavor. By finding that fulfillment, we can move forward in life in a productive way.
In our individual life journey, we all have had or will have a negative experience that leaves us a little broken. However, as we grow, the goal should be to figure out how to repair that broken part of us so that we can ultimately give our best to everyone in our sphere of influence. There are some who do just that and live in that state of fulfillment.
Yet there are many who are so broken and hurt, so worn down after years of neglect, that they have lost their way trying to find that healthy place and struggle to process the pain. Their goal has become survival at all costs, and the pilgrimage to do so literally wears them down as they try to fend for themselves. They have only learned how to better manage symptoms, rather than dealing with the root causes of their dysfunction. Along the way, they will undoubtedly hurt others. They may not mean to, but it still happens because they are too self-absorbed in their own torment to see clearly.
Those who take that different path and choose to be FLY are my heroes! They are the brave ones who realize they have problems. They know that life isn’t perfect and neither are the people in it, but they understand that their future and sanity are definitely worth fighting for. It is a lesson for all of us. Take some time today and do something just for yourself. Strive to be FLY