Used to be not very at all… constantly getting angry at myself for fucking something up. People liked to spout all this nonsense about self love and it just felt so gross to me.

But the thing is, if you hate yourself, you can’t immediately jump from hate to love. There has to be much more gradual and realistic steps otherwise it’s not going to work.

The first and most important step I had was in realizing that I was a human being. Sounds silly, I know. Intellectually I understand that I am homo sapiens, but I always felt like I “knew better” than to do XYZ if that makes sense. I didn’t feel human.

But I realized that I was human and I realized what it implied. I am not a robot. You are not a robot. Humans are animals. We are messy. We feel things like joy, elation, jealousy, rage, depression, sadness, desire, etc. That’s normal and it’s a part of you. Do you have a job? Guess what? You literally cannot be perfect at your job. Because you are a human. You can be good at it, but you aren’t a robot. You’ll make mistakes. Sometimes you’ll be lazy. Sometimes you’ll be productive. That huge variation in color is what makes you a living, breathing organism. Once you understand that about yourself, it becomes easier to understand yourself and be less hard on yourself because of it. Why punish yourself for being human? It is nonsensical.

Quite patient actually. I’ve been waiting for myself to get my ass in gear all my life until today. Going strong for 40 years soon.