Once upon a time I didn't like myself all that much. I didn't hate myself, but I didn't exactly love myself either. I wanted to be something that I wasn't. I wanted to be taller. Less skinny. More attractive. Better at sports. Musically talented. Less awkward. Able to dance. I wanted to be a lot of things that I wasn't, and couldn't possibly be. For that reason I wasn't able to accept who I was, I had good qualities that I couldn't see. I was possibly 30 years of age before I decided it wasn't that bad being me. By 31 I was in love. By 32 I was married. Once I started to accept myself, I let myself love myself, and with that came the ability to love others.

I've learned that in life its important to be nice to others, but its possibly even more important to be nice to yourself. When I started to love myself, I opened doors for myself that was previously locked. You have to love who you are before you can go on and do anything in this short life that we have.

Let the world love you just the way you are....flaws and all, as ugly as you sometimes may feel, as incomplete as you may be. We are all a work in progress, we all have things we could learn to do better. The key is knowing what those things are and accepting that we can continue to grow and be better, and loving ourselves now despite our failings today. Those hang ups that we may have of ourselves today get a lot easier to put right if we love who we are regardless.