In my childhood home, expecting guests was always a big thing. My mom, ever the excellent hostess, would start preparing for their arrival days before. At the heart of these preparations were two important rituals:
- Using the ‘special plates’, which were like the ones my father used.
- Pleading with us to be on our best behavior.
By the time I was 10, seeing those plates laid out became synonymous with comporting myself.
But this is not a post about African hospitality or well-behaved children.
As I grew, I noticed the same dynamic with friends and roommates, this innate need to always want to put the best foot forward when meeting (new) people.
Boyfriends would spring clean their filthy apartments and wear fresh underwear in preparation for their girlfriends’ sleepovers.
Girlfriends, whose main diet was eggs and instant noodles, would cook a buffet to impress their boyfriends.
People swapping their old and worn delicates for beautiful, lacy ones when they had that kind of appointment.
All these beg the questions:
Why do we feel the need to be the best versions of for other people and not for ourselves?
Why do we feel we deserve to stay in filth while our love interests get the pristine end of the stick?
Why don’t we take the time to care for and look after ourselves the way we do to the people around us?
This natural consideration for others also ties into less physical things.
We are quicker to forgive others when they wrong us but still beat ourselves up for a gaffe we committed… three years ago.
We speak kindly to others and water them with our words but say all sorts of derogatory things about ourselves consciously and unconsciously.
Kindness, like love, doesn’t always have to be other-directed for it to have meaning. Sometimes, the person most deserving of it is you.
Talk to yourself kindly.
Don’t call yourself stupid for forgetting to attach the document before hitting send on the email.
Don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes, trusting the wrong people, or not being at the top of your career or fitness game.
Too much familiarity breeds contempt. It is easy to overlook or look down on yourself because of this familiarity. However, you are deserving of all those good things you are quick to do for and give to others. Don’t let kindness become the special plate you sample only when you have guests or are treating a potential love interest. Use it on yourself too.
Like what you read? Check out Rewriting Faulty Emotional Scripts: Review of Calculator (2003) and Blackstone and the Halloween Assumption.
Thanks a lot for this Nne. It’s very important
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