Morning Surprise

Last night, I KNEW I would stop doing anything productive the moment I left the library and came back to pgp. And true enough, I started feeling unhappy with myself and stuff, and went to sleep at midnight, filled with guilt - I live a life of guilt. No work = guilty, no exercise = guilty, no piano = guilty. For me, the opposite of the word 'guilt' is 'self-expectations'. 

Anyway, having not moved a bit yesterday, I swore to wake at 6am today to run. I climbed out of bed at 6:30am, had a can of red bull (to kid myself into thinking i'd be definitely more energised) and thus more willing to run... and checked my e-mail. I saw a mail 'sich selbst lieben' and I almost deleted it, thinking it was spam. Thank goodness I know some German and understood the title.  Someone from nuspe sent me a note of encouragement, and I was really touched. =) 

Anyway, I'm feeling better now. I ran 8km (I can't believe the sun was blazing by 7:30am) and then gymmed a bit. May I ache non-stop through the day and revel in the satisfaction. Mmmm. 

Sich Selbst Lieben

You have the right to love yourself.

You are allowed to be yourself,
feel comfortable with yourself,
discover and know yourself,
like a man knows his lover.

Nothing will enable you
to love others,
except to love yourself.
Hence every action
of self-love
is a guide that brings you closer to others.

It is important
that you leave time for yourself.
Love needs time to develop.
If there is no time,
neglect will follow,
and when you neglect yourself,
you lose yourself.
And when you lose yourself,
you lose the ability
to love others.

When love grows,
so does your imagination.
You will develop new ideas
about whom you really are,
or who you would like to be.

You will discover the worlds inside you
that you can conquer during your imaginative journey;
You will sense your value
and your potential unleashed.

The more you know yourself,
the more creative is your love.
Watch it take shape and enable you
to love others in different ways.

But it is not always easy
to love yourself.
You will also see your dark side more clearly,
recoil from them,
refuse and deny them,
and believe that they do not belong to you.

But they too are you
and you must accept them as a part of you,
as a part of your active life.
They belong to you too.
Only when you accept this part of yourself,
understand it thoroughly,
and take actions to deal with it,
then will you be able
to accept this part of others.

Thus this is what you need to do
before you can love others.

Only the man who loves himself
will not pamper himself.
Indulgence is bad.
Selfish is the man
who has nothing and is tempted
to seize everything by force,
though he will always end up with less.

But he will give himself to others
and gain spiritual wealth in the process
when he loves himself.