(I just found this post that I wrote in High School, and it's quite interesting. I didn't publish it by accident.):
"The main quality that defines me as a teenager is narcissism. My psyche is a vacuole of distressing over-analyzation. Here's how I think of it: souls are like atoms. At the core, our nucleus, you have the positive protons and neutral neutrons. The protons are the qualities one aspires to have, and the neutrons are the qualities already integrated into their being. The negative electrons are the annoying, yet necessary opposition, which one ideally repels with their protons, or positivity."
Me currently: I stand by the cool metaphor, but I do not agree with how I claimed that narcissism is the main quality that defines me. I do believe that that is how our society had defined Millennials for a while. After all, "selfie" has been a full-on term in the dictionary for some time all because of Millennials' seeming self-obsession.
However, this "self-obsession" has seemed to be morphing into "self-love" lately. Self-empowering terms such as "feeling myself," "slay," and "queen" have become common terminology as a means of expressing confidence in oneself. I keep contemplating if we are using this as a rationalization of our unhealthy narcissism, and owning and pride in our narcissism, or a redefinition of what it means to take a selfie and promote one's confidence. I think it is the latter.
I think that people still think of themselves too much instead of sharing intimate human interaction and truly valuing themselves in the fact that they open themselves up to helping others. I think this is largely due to human communication--specifically concerning technology. Once the internet sprouted up, people quickly gravitated towards it as a virtual forefront. However, in all things there is opposition, so we soon became aware of the excessive bullying that also came from it and still continues to this day. From opposition, there also came beauty though. Today, there are numerous anti-bullying and self-love campaigns with public figures behind them. Some examples of self-love advocators include Demi Lovato, Meghan Trainor, and numerous other public figures who continuously speak out to young people who are struggling with depression, eating disorders, and sexual confusion.
I think this is great. It's good that people are using the power of speech to encourage others to love themselves. I think this step is vital in helping to heal our society. However, I also think it is important to define what it means to actually love oneself--truly. I wanna define TRUE LOVE, people. (AKA me reading this) Anyway, what our society promotes as self-love right now is basically that we are in charge of our lives, and we can do no wrong as long as it makes us happy. A comfortable, easy-to-swallow platform that makes you feel like life is simple, and happiness is the only standard. Obviously, this is not completely so. Happiness isn't the only standard or else why would we feel sickened by the thought of criminals who find happiness in robbing our house? (btw I'm alone in my gma's house rn...kinda creeping myself out)
"Well, yeah," one might say, "but those are the crazies. They don't count." Except that yes they do. They're human beings, and don't they deserve happiness as much as anyone?
This is where the essentiality of morals step in, like the vegetables you didn't realize were delicious until you became diabetic. The limits of happiness are when they begin to take away from somebody else's or your own well being.
As we promote self-love, we must teach young people that while you can love yourself and pursue happiness, everything comes with a price, and some things make you happier than others. When you rob a house, you are decreasing somebody else's happiness. When you smoke, you are decreasing your life span. When you drink alcohol, whether you like it or not, you increase the chances of injuring, or even killing, somebody else. Food makes a lot of people happy too (including myself, 600%), but when you go past your limit, you start to feel the hurt. There are natural limits to our world--limits that are becoming more and more blurry.
Something advocates of self-love would do well to keep in mind(including myself) is to live true happiness.
While Narcissism is not something we truly focus on now because of our heavy emphasis on self-love, I would submit that narcissism is a real problem and a true enemy to self-love. If we keep defining self-love as showing off our bodies and taking a lot of selfies, we will dilute love and even subtract our own happiness. The simplest solution I know to this is by everyone looking outward, contributing to others' happiness, and as a result, we will become happier ourselves. It's the standard cycle of happiness.
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