The 40 Days of Love Project: Introduction

There are times when we feel that the only way to get ahead in the world is to take others down. We become experts at picking faults and weaknesses. We then turn these skills to ourselves. Often I hear people complain about themselves. "I didn't get this grade in an exam", "I'm so fat", "I hate my body", "Nobody is friends with me because I'm no fun". It is rare to hear someone say something positive about themselves. It is as though the world has made it easier to focus on the bad and ignore the good. Sometimes when we do see the good that has always been there, it is too late. The friends that have always stood by you have gone. Your lecturer, sick of hearing you complain about his marking won't reply to the email when you have a question about your assignment.

I have a confession to make, I am one of those people. I hardly ever have something nice to say about myself. I find the smallest imperfection and pick away at it until it becomes so painful and infected that it will never go away without a scar. My friends say lovely things about me. At points in time I have been the most important person in someones life. Even then, when I get given a compliment I tent to just brush it off. I never listen to it carefully and let it make me feel good. I tell myself that they don't know the real me and if they did they wouldn't say things like that.

Over the last few days a unexpected chain of events has made me look at things more carefully. Why is it that I can pick on myself so easily but I can never say something nice? Why can't I find something that I love about myself? Maybe it's time to look at it a new way. If my friends, family and even from time to time a Significant Other can all see the good things in my life. Why can't I? Does the way we view ourselves have an effect on how we look at the world.

So this is my challenge, for the 40 days of Lent 2011, every day I have to find something new and different about myself that I like. Its time to shake off the past and start trying to see what others can see... I know it won't be easy but if things in life were easy would we still do them?

<3 S