Do you accept you?

When the going gets tough and the pressure is on, it's not necessarily the talented ones who rise to the challenge. It's the ones who accept themselves. 'Narcissists rush in where angels fear to tread. They may not be the most talented. but they believe in themselves, don't fear failures and respond brilliantly to pressure. It is often called self-love, but it can be very useful' according to Dr R Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

Do you accept yourself? Many even find the question as sounding corny and cheesy, what more to come up with a resounding 'Yes' to the question. Many actually hesitate before answering in the affirmative as if loving or liking oneself is a deformity or symptoms of social retard. To accept the things you like and also the things you don't like about yourself is to be at total peace with who you are~!

By loving yourself, you take responsibility for who you are and you look after your health, dignify your image, conscious of your manners, make best effort for your performance and your progress in life. People who have problem accepting themselves tend to do self-sabotage. They hate how they look, so they eat foods which make them overweight! They hate how their parents treat them, so they fail at school as a form of revenge! The next time a child came home with more red than blue in their record book - it is not only them to be questioned, but the parents too. 

Love begins at home. A home is a house filled with love. Where parents exhibit genuine love for each other and display unconditional love for their children. Acceptance prevails~! Children from a loving home are more confident of themselves and tend to be better adept socially and at school both in education and at play. When I was in Kuala Lumpur, there were vandalism in our neighbourhood and more often than not upon investigation they were done by children from unhappy homes. How do we know? Oh yes we know because their parents are always at each others throat and they treat their own children with contempt.

Loving homes produce children with higher level of self-confidence and self-belief. Both confidence and self-belief are essential towards self-acceptance.

In relationship, many wise people have already said that you first need to be able to love yourself before you can love others. Another question comes to my mind - As Muslims, is it possible to truly love yourself if you know that you have not full-filled your duty to Religion and to God? Or to reverse the question - Is it possible for someone to love themselves but not to love God and his/her religion? And if one loves God and Islam, is it possible for him or her not to do what is asked of him or her to do, religiously speaking?

These are questions which do not call for anyone else but the owner of self to answer. Religion is a sacred and personal thing and it is a matter of faith between individual and his or her God.

I will leave the paragraph on religion by saying how I am always enchanted, energized and hopeful whenever I see faces of practicing Muslims with Nur shining through their whole face, radiantly. I admire these people. To me that is an ultimate result of self-love - to be in total surrender and in devoted love to God the Almighty!

I am not there yet...

I have seen faces of many Muslims with all the worldly blessings, yet their faces are dull like a whole cloud hangs over their head. Mine too~!

I have also seen faces of people who pray so hard that their foreheads have the 'black marks' due to praying - yet, their faces are lacking Nur and not shining as if the whole light bulbs have been fused.

Perhaps, I am being over simplistic by measuring the degree of ones' self-love through facial expression and the sparkles in their eyes. But then again, I am a simple person.

To accept oneself, is not about justifying the wrong to be right or vise versa. It is about being at peace that certain things have happened, and that there are reasons why they happened. In Islam, this is called Redha!