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Is it like taking yourself on a date and giving yourself a treat? Or posting your pictures on your social media platforms so that people will know you really love yourself? While all of these and many other things can be done as a depiction of self-love, they may not entirely portray self-love.

One would have thought that progress would make people love themselves more; but that is false. Those who are succeeding don’t love their lives; those who are not succeeding also don’t love their lives either. Should we achieve?

Early last year, I saw in the news in Ghana that a student from one of the universities had committed suicide. According to the news, he was a very good student. Why would he kill himself then?

For rich and famous people who commit suicide, the list is countless. Suicide is the ultimate display of self-hatred. I hope we can agree that success is not a prerequisite for self-love? If it were, successful people shouldn't commit suicide.

I’ve become all the more concerned about how people hate their lives. We can’t love ourselves as we should because we keep looking at an unreal image of ourselves. You have to understand that everything you are doing or feeling now is because of a certain image you had or have in mind.

The image you have is a sole product of the mirror you use. In other words, when you look in a mirror, you cede the power of your identity to the mirror, so the mirror gives you an identity based on its features.

When you look to people for your identity, they give you your identity based on their features- their wins, losses, potential, etc.
We all fall victim to looking in the wrong mirrors for our image. The mirror of our past is one of the mirrors we normally look into for our image. It looks to me that this mirror is automatic. We don’t struggle to look in this mirror.

For example, a lady whose heart has been broken before is likely not to trust any man who comes into her life. Is it because all men are bad? Is it because she’s been cursed not to get faithful men? Is it because she’s too ‘some way’ to find a faithful man? She’s getting the image relationship using the mirror of her past.

Unfortunately, the mirror of our past reveals to us automatically the mistakes we did. It reveals to us our “should haves.” I should have studied harder, I should have said no to him, I should have started that course.

What the mirror of our past reveals to us makes us feel inadequate. We are not inadequate but we feel inadequate because we believe what we think we look like.

Sometimes this unreal image of ourselves also comes from what we see around us. Thanks to social media the world is now a click away. Every day, people post countless images of themselves on social media.

The irony is that we make comparisons based on those posts, but seldom will someone post a picture of their “problems” on social media. Don’t be deceived; you’re seeing only the aspects of their lives they want you to see.

Nobody has a perfect life. We all roll with our struggles. So when we see the progress of others, let’s celebrate with them but let’s refrain from comparing ourselves to them.

If you are not satisfied with where you are in life and want to achieve more, you need to change the mirror you’re looking into.
When you change your mirror, your whole world changes and what seemed to be out of reach becomes reachable.