L.O.V.E

       A four-letter word that has, and continues to change lives daily. We hear about it in movies, in books, in churches and in our group chats. The funny thing about what we generally know of love is its application to somebody else. “I love my family, I love my boyfriend, I love Queen Bey”… That’s great; it really is, but what about you? Do you love yourself?

Love starts from within. The mistake people make is trying to find love from outside. You try to get that warm, fuzzy feeling that Disney sold to us all in a plethora of Princess stories. Here’s my question to you – how do you expect to love someone else when you have not learnt to love yourself?

By saying, “love yourself,” I don’t mean become self obsessed or narcissistic, I mean appreciate YOU. Get to know YOU. Find out what YOU like, want, or dream about. What are YOUR goals and ambitions? Who do YOU want to become in five years? You can’t go around with a list of qualities you want in your future partner, when you have not even evaluated yourself to see whether you possess them. That is unrealistic.

Love yourself. Discover who you really are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and your talents and your unique abilities. Be confident in yourself. “Love the Skin you’re in”  (Olay got that marketing scheme right! J)

The journey to self-discovery is a solo one. The best way to begin loving yourself is to be by yourself - to be single. Because frankly, you can’t give what you don’t have. Being single allows you to learn how to love; with your very own self being the first recipient. You have the extra time to meditate, think and really understand yourself. You learn to accept that “flaw” as a unique feature about you. You learn to see yourself as important and impactful on your environment. One thing I’ve learnt is that you have the absolute power to let external things affect you or be affected by you. A ship is surrounded by water but only sinks when it has a hole in it. People can do or say what they like to you, but so long as you keep their negativity blocked out, your ship will continue sailing.

Today’s society makes out being single as being a social pariah, especially for people in the 21 and older age group. Loose-tongued Aunties start dropping overt comments like “When will you marry? You don’t even have a serious boyfriend at your age!” and “When I was your age I had too many men flocking around me” more and more frequently and you find yourself dodging certain people at family gatherings. Even amongst ourselves, social networks have a way of glorifying relationships with the “relationship goal” pictures and quotes, which make it easy to get sucked in and you find yourself wanting a relationship “just because”. However, do not do it.

Embrace the single life and relish it. If a relationship comes, let it be because you have completed your journey of self-evaluation and now understand and love yourself as an individual. Relationships, like many other things in life are “give and take”, and to give love at all, you must have self-love. Love yourself, or nobody will.

Edited by the wonderful, Modupe Ojelabi.

Originally written for Tundun Kezia.

Response to "Situationships"

Hey there! So due to my laptop crashing (twice!) I haven't been able to blog - however I'm trying out this blogging from my phone thing, but I can't post images :(

Anyways, here's a response to my last post, Situationships - enjoy it - I know I did haha!


Written by Iyebiye Olawuyi ❤️
Reasons you should not be in a situationship 
As a person who has been in over a million situationships (you know that’s exaggerated), I can totally say that a situationship is the worst relationship you could get yourself into. Below are the reasons for such an assertion.
It is a total waste of time. When people say they’ll gain experience and other stuff like that from it, they are only deceiving themselves. You don’t have to learn from your own experiences.
It always ends in heartbreak, especially for the girl. This is because when the guy is tired of her, especially as a result of use, he will find it very easy to walk away because he was not in any formal relationship before then.
No situationship anywhere in the world has ever ended in marriage. Take it or leave it.
After everything ends, the partners never remain as friends and if they do, they’ll always have hurts or grudges against each other no matter how small. One of my friends used to be in a situationship with a guy, now it’s over but almost everything the guy ever does just tends to get her upset.
When you are in such an arrangement (a situationship), you look cheap and also desperate.
You will never know where you stand when you are in such an arrangement. You might think he/she sees you as his/her girl/guy but he/she might just  be seeing you as just a friend, just a reading partner (hahahahahaha), a friend with benefits, a side chick/guy or just a spare part. lol 
You limit your vision. You don’t notice other people because you are too busy trying to  make your situationship work that you either fall into the friendszone with people you could have had profiting relationships with or you don’t even notice them at all. When you are in a situationship, you always think your partner is the best you can find anywhere and you are usually under a false believe that if you let him or her go, you will not find a better person.
You hinder your progress. When you are in a situationship, other guys/girls who see you from afar and want to get close to don’t come near because they feel you are in a relationship, whereas you are only on a roller coaster.
If you are in the kind of situationship where you are being asked out by your partner but you don’t want to say “yes” just yet because you are scared that he/she might break your heart if you both dated, but you do everything that people are dating do and you even cross the line and do stuff meant for married people, I want to tell you from experience that you are really gonna get your fingers burnt in the end. I don’t have the time to explain step by step how it works, but I just want you to know that you are heading for a terrible disaster.
NB: I want you to know that guys looooove situationships (though some girls do too). So if you and a guy are running such an arrangement and you are thinking he is gonna date or even marry you, (give me a few seconds, I need to laugh), you might just be all alone in dreamland or what my people call o.y.o. lmaoooooo 

Emotions.

Happy… Sad... Angry.

Confused.

What do you feel? How do you feel?

Do you feel?

Of course you feel. Everyone feels. No matter how hardcore and emotionless you may think you are, so long as you belong to the human race, darling, you’ve got emotions. Whether you show them or not, is a whole different case entirely. Some people can be totally broken inside but on the surface appear to be as jovial as Eddie Murphy – it’s one of those mysteries of life I guess.

For anyone who has studied the brain before (yes, a geeky moment is coming up – I am a medical student after all lol) you would know that the brain is an intensely intricate organ. Every single of the billions of synapses in the brain has a purpose – including the limbic system, which is where the emotion center lies. If we did not need emotions why would a whole system of the brain be dedicated to its management?

Don’t be embarrassed to feel. It’s normal. It’s what makes you sane. So what if the way someone chews gum irks you? It doesn’t make you a bad person; if nothing in this life ever aroused a response from your limbic system would you really be living?