Ep. 80 - Why 'Love Yourself' Is Horrible Advice
Episode Stats
Summary
In this episode, I discuss the idea of loving yourself and why it is not only a good thing, but a necessary part of being a Christian and a disciple of Jesus Christ. I also talk about the dangers of over-emphasis on self-love and why we should focus on other things instead.
Transcript
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So I wanted to build on something that we talked about yesterday, and that is, if you remember,
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we talked about social media and how social media fuels our narcissism and causes us to think about
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ourselves, focus on ourselves an inordinate amount. And this is where a lot of the self-esteem
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issues come from. It's not that we think badly about ourselves in this culture. It's just that
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we think about ourselves way too often. We spend way too much time thinking about ourselves.
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And when we do that, of course, we're going to notice our flaws. And of course, we're going to
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be obsessed with those flaws because we're obsessed with ourselves. And then we chalk that up to a
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self-esteem problem when really it's a narcissism problem. It's almost the opposite of a self-esteem
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problem. And now that isn't to say that we should never notice our flaws. We need to be self-aware.
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We need to know that we have flaws. But we shouldn't spend all day noticing them. And the
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best thing to do with a character flaw or a moral flaw is to, once you notice it, to then just set
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out to correct it, to live your life and try to correct it in the way that you live your life.
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And the best thing to do with an unfixable physical flaw is to just forget it. And again,
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live your life. Either way, the process is harder and we are interfering with it when we are too
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focused on ourselves. Now, I mentioned that I think these love yourself, embrace your flaws
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types of campaigns are misguided. And they're very common these days, of course, where we're constantly
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being told to love yourself, love yourself. I think it's misguided because we should be encouraging each
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other to forget about ourselves. Forget yourself and focus on other things. Look outward instead of
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always inward. So I don't agree with running around and telling everyone to love themselves.
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And in fact, I think that if we just drop that phrase from our vocabulary completely and never again
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discussed, loving yourself, self-love, you got to love it. If we never talked about those things ever
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again, we would be better for it. Now, I got a lot of feedback to that idea about self-love. So
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some of it positive, a lot of it negative or critical, I should say anyway. And honestly,
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the critical feedback, it hurt my own self-love. So I want you to know that. It hurt my feelings.
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So now I wanted to, I wanted to expand upon it a little bit more because I think it's an important
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point. My basic theory is this, loving yourself, if understood correctly, can be good, but not as an
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end in itself and not as the beginning either. Now, I think there are two huge mistakes we make when we
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talk about self-love, the idea of loving ourselves are two huge mistakes. The first mistake is in thinking
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that loving yourself is the highest good and the ultimate point of life. That's obviously a big
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mistake. The second mistake is in thinking that self-love is the starting point and you really
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can't love anyone else until you love yourself. Now, I'm not going to spend much time debunking the
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first idea, which is, which is Satanism. The idea that self-love is the highest good, the ultimate
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point. That's Satanism. Um, and it is a philosophy that's been adopted in the mainstream by, by, uh,
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by leftism. But I've talked about that plenty of times in the past. I will again in the future for
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now. I, I'm going to address the second idea, which is prevalent, even among people who know that
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self-love is not the highest good. It's still very prevalent. And you hear this all the time,
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don't you? Right. I mean, you, you've heard this meant, maybe you've said it yourself
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that, um, you can't love someone else until you learn to love yourself. You'll even hear that,
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uh, that you really can't do anything with your life until you love yourself. This is what's
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implied when you ask someone, you know, you meet someone that you haven't seen in a while and you
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say, Oh, what are you doing with yourself? What are you, what are you doing for a living? And they say,
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well, I'm just working on myself right now. I'm just working on myself. Now, Christians will tend to
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think that, and what he means is he's completely, he is, he, this is a person who has just caved in
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on themselves, just completely just there. You're looking at a void of a person where they have
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completely caved in and they've blocked everything else out. And they're just thinking about themselves
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all day and working on themselves. Now, Christians will tend to think that there's scriptural support
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for this approach. Um, they'll point to Jesus saying, love your neighbor as yourself. And they
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take that to mean that you cannot begin the project of loving your neighbor until you have developed a
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sufficient affection for yourself. But that is not at all what is meant. You see, we have to remember
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that love your neighbor as yourself is the second greatest commandment. The first commandment that
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we're given is love the Lord God with all your, with all your heart and with all your soul and
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with all your mind and with all your strength. I would say that if we, if we concentrate on the
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first commandment, which is loving God, and then if we concentrate next on the first part of the second
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commandment, which is loving our neighbor, and if we really give that our attention, uh, then love for
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ourselves will just be tossed into the bargain. We don't even have to think about it. If you're really
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focused on loving God and loving your neighbor, uh, then, then your self-love just comes with it. It's
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just part of it. Self-love is not the starting point. It's not the beginning and it's not the end
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goal either. It's a by-product. It's something that happens in the middle and not because you're trying
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to make it happen. It, it, it simply does happen. There's another important thing we should remember
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about love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. What that really means in
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context is keep your neighbor's interests at heart. Like you keep your own interests at heart.
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This is not, this is, Jesus is not recommending self-esteem that Jesus is, is, is simply building
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off of the fact that we all naturally as individuals value our own interests and work towards fulfilling
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them. Everybody on earth naturally does that. Now we may have very wrong ideas about what's in our
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best interest, but we still are. That's, we were very concerned about that all the time. We're concerned
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about our own interests. So Jesus is just taking that for granted. He's not saying to work on that or to
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build that up. He's saying you're already like that. So you don't have to think about it. That's how you
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are. But instead take that mentality and apply it to your neighbor. Don't worry about fortifying that
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mentality about yourself, apply it to your neighbor. But we've taken this command and we've, we've done
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the opposite. We've, we've, we've taken it the opposite direction. That's the opposite of what we
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were supposed to do when we use it as an excuse for selfishness. No, no, no. That's, that's the opposite
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of what he meant. I think there are two things about love that we have to remember in order to, you know,
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in order to really work through this idea of self-love. The first thing is, you know, Aquinas
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says that to love, he defines love as willing the good of the other, right? That is wanting what is
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good for someone, not necessarily wanting them to always get what they want, but wanting what is
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actually good for them, what is actually good. And then working so far as we can to actively bring
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about that good. Uh, I've never heard a better definition of love. I think that is, that's the
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definition. That's it, right? That's whatever the dictionary says that right there, Aquinas,
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he has the definition to will the good of the other. At least that's the definition for person
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to person love. Uh, love for God is a little bit different because you can't really will the good of
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God. He already, he already has everything he needs. There is no good that you can provide for
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him, um, or wish for him because he's the author of all good. So he's, he already has all that. He
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contains it. He is it. Love for God, I think could be defined more like maybe something like wanting to
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give God what he is due, which would be our faith, our loyalty, our trust, our obedience.
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That's what loving God means. But how does this definition apply to self-love? What does it even
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mean to love yourself? What is, what is the definition? And it's kind of confusing because
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you'll notice that both of these definitions, although the second one I just came up with, but
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the, the first one from Thomas Klan, that it's outwardly focused by definition, how do you bring
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it back on yourself? Well, I guess to love yourself, if, if, if, if loving others is to will the good of
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the other, to love yourself must mean to will what is good for you, not to will what is pleasurable
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necessarily, or even what is always desirable, but to will what is actually edifying, healthy,
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wholesome, things that are going to elevate you, bring you closer to truth and to beauty
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and to God, to love someone else, to put it more simply is, is to want them to go to heaven
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and to work to, to kind of help them get there. And so to love yourself is to want yourself to go to
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heaven and to help yourself get there. But that desire in its, in its fullest and holiest state
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is not rooted in a love for yourself. It's rooted in a love for God. So you, you want to be good
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and do good because that's what you ought to do, because that's what God deserves for you to do.
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So I think we see that self-love cannot be the starting point. It can't be the point at all. It's
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not the point. It's a thing that happens when you worry about loving things beyond yourself.
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It is the product of those things. Second point, we see from Aquinas' definition that love is active.
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It's not just a feeling. This, of course, is a, is a huge misconception we have in our culture,
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and it's been disastrous for our culture. It's been disastrous, especially for families and for marriages,
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where we look at love as a feeling of affection, but it's not. Love is an act to will, to will the good
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of the other. The problem is that when, when people talk about, about loving themselves,
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they mean it almost always as a purely emotional exercise. They mean, they mean to say that, um,
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they want to feel good about themselves. That's what, that's what, that's what they mean. It's like,
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I'm working on loving myself. What they mean is I'm working on feeling good about myself.
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They're, they are essentially sitting around trying to conjure up emotions about themselves,
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or maybe they're even taking drugs to help that or whatever, but they're, they're, they are trying
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to develop emotions in their head about themselves. And this is a ridiculous exercise because you're
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never going to reach a state where you feel always good about yourself. That's never going to happen.
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It shouldn't happen. Anyway, you should, there are times when you should feel bad about yourself.
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When you do something bad, when you do a horrible or selfish or cowardly thing,
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you should feel bad about yourself. You shouldn't feel great in those moments.
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Doesn't mean you should hate yourself. You shouldn't go into despondency and despair over it,
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but, but you shouldn't feel good about yourself either. So there's never going to be, there's never
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going to be a point where you always feel good about yourself. Just like, just like you, you're
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never going to reach a point where you feel always affectionate towards your, your spouse or your kids,
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but you love your spouse and your kids, hopefully. Anyway, in fact, in fact, love really comes into play
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in the moments where you don't feel particularly good. You're talking about your, in a, in a family
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setting with your, with your spouse or your children. It's when you don't feel that really
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strong affection because you're tired or you're annoyed or you're angry or you're hurt or whatever
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it is, right? It's when you don't feel that when you, when you, when, when, when you don't have that
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affection necessarily, that's when love really comes in. That's when the love is really needed
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because then to love the other person is an act of will. It's really a choice. It's not just
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something that you're doing because, because you happen to be feeling pretty good in the moment.
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Anybody can act loving when they feel loving. Anyone can do that. Doesn't mean anything.
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Even the most abusive and horrible spouse can still act loving in the moments where he feels loving,
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but it doesn't mean anything. If the moment when those, those feelings leave, you start acting like
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a tyrant. So to act loving when you don't feel it, that's the real thing right there. I mean, that's,
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that's it. That's love. And it's, that's really love in its, in its strongest state or maybe I should
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say in its rawest state. Um, so when we always focus on our emotions about ourselves, we're embarking
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on this really foolish and narcissistic quest to reach a state of emotional constancy in relation to
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ourselves, which is never going to happen. Instead, we should just be always doing what is good for
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ourselves, actually good, not what is always pleasurable or anything like that, but just what
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is actually good, what is actually bringing us higher and closer to truth. And, uh, and we should
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just be doing that all the time and let the emotions come and go as they will. So that there really
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shouldn't be a reason to talk about self-love. It's not the point of everything. It's not the starting
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point. It's not the end. It's not something you feel. It's, it's something that comes with the package
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of loving others in a real and active way. The last thing I'll say is this. Think about the implications
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of this idea that, uh, that you have to love yourself before you can love other people. Think about what
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that looks like in practice. Think about how this must work in a marriage for the brief period where
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somebody with this mentality can actually stay in a marriage. Think about how that must work.
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You'd be going up to your spouse and saying, sorry, honey, I can't love you today. I'm just not feeling
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great about myself. You see, I need to love myself again. And then I'll, and then I'll get around to
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you. Okay. But I can't love you right now because I'm, I, you know, I'm just not feeling great.
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No, I think that obviously is not the right approach. The opposite is, is the better approach.
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Forget about yourself, love your spouse, serve your spouse. And then magically you'll find that
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your opinion of yourself improves. It's, it's, that's what happens. It's really, it's really magical
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like that. Go out and do good things for others and do your duty, fulfill your responsibilities.
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Live as though you feel great about yourself. And then you'll find that, oh, wow, I feel pretty good
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right now. But then you can't, but, but here's the, this is what I'm talking about. We've become so
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focused on our emotions about ourselves. It can't, that's the, your emotions about yourself. That's,
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that's just an underlying thing. It's, it's, it's a current that's kind of there, but you can't stop
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and think about it. Because even when you're going out and you're living your life and you're doing
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what you're supposed to do and you're being self-sacrificial and you're being loving towards
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others, that is going to lift you up emotionally as well. But the moment that you stop and dwell on
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it, you stop and think, wow, I really feel great about myself right now. Let me think more about how I
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feel about myself. Let me analyze the, the moment you do that, it all falls apart. You start losing all of
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it. It's like, now it's, now it's just water through your fingertips and you're trying to grab
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it. It's like, no, I just had it. It's gone now. That's because you're not supposed to stop and
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think about it. Continue living, continue going. I guess it's, it's, it's a little bit like when you,
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if you've ever really dwelled on breathing or if you've been walking and, and you, and you began to
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think, this is kind of a, how am I walking right now? I'm not, I don't feel myself telling myself to
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walk. You start dwelling on the act of walking or the act. And the moment you do that, it starts to
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feel weird. Like you, you almost forget how to do it because you're not supposed to dwell on it.
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It's kind of something that you do automatically.
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So love yourself first and then, and then you can love others. No, I think, I think, I think the
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opposite is the case. I think maybe the way that we should phrase it is, is, is something like this.
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You cannot love yourself until you learn how to love something other than yourself. I think maybe
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that's the way we should put it. And that's how we should live. All right. Thanks for watching.