Finally weekend is here. It’s Saturday morning and I am already tensed about what I should wear tonight at the party. All my husband’s friends are going to be there with all the ladies decked up as if they have just been out of some fashion show. I need to look my best. I finally finalised on a short off-shoulder black dress with red pumps.

Soon it was night and before I know, we are at the party. As always, the party starts with drinks. I order my usual cocktail because I still haven’t gotten used to the taste of any beer or wine. I never used to drink before marriage, but here, as everyone talks and sways their glasses, I force myself to drink it. But, even after these 5 years I hate it. I hate its taste, I hate how it makes me feel, but to be socially accepted, I have to. I don’t want to be looked down upon.

We all have, at some point in time, forced our self to do something just because everyone else does, and we feel if we don’t follow, we won’t be socially accepted or will be tagged as a boring person. We give more importance to other people’s thoughts over ourselves. What we don’t understand, in the words of Mark Twain, is -

We forget that what other people think of us should not be our concern. If we start thinking what others will think about us, what will the ‘others’ think about? Don’t we have more important things to do and think of? We can’t change what others think about us, so why bother? Everyone has their own opinions. We can’t make others to think our way. And frankly, nobody has time to waste, thinking about a third person. In today’s fast paced world, we don’t even have a minute to wander.

So, it’s time to stop worrying about others and start thinking about our own self. We need to make our self the first priority because nobody is going to stay forever with us. When we fall ill, our close ones may provide us with the best medication and comfort, but we have to bear the pain and suffering. Nobody can help us with that or even help reduce it a tiny bit.

Our life is our own and we need to walk through this path of life alone. The good deeds done by others won’t help us. We need to create our own mark. For that we need to spend more time understanding our self, finding out what we are good at and working on developing that skill.

Our life is what we make of it. The more importance we give to our health, loving our self and perfecting our talent, the easier life will be on us.

Having lots of friends is not an achievement; instead, we should focus of having few real ones. Even if we have a single real friend, believe me that will be the greatest achievement of our life.

By saying we should give most importance to our own self, I don’t mean we shouldn’t treat others well. What I mean is that, we need to do what is good for others and ourselves. We shouldn’t harm our self in order to please others. Real friend help us achieve this. They are the ones who will bring out the best in us.

On the other hand, too much self-importance will destroy us. It’s like termites, eating us away from the inside without us even knowing. Nobody likes to be in the company of someone who always boasts about themselves. If we give too much self-importance to ourselves, slowly people will start drifting away from us and we will be left all alone. This loneliness slowly leads to depression, and depression may also lead to a person’s death.

Self-importance should be a quality that others admire in us, not something that drives people away.

This is correctly described in the words of Lucille Ball -

Every morning, stand in front of the mirror and say these three magical words to yourself - “I Love You”, and see how life changes for the best.