Build Yourself First

By Marlon leTerrance


Let me be straight with you from the get-go. True love is not inevitable. It would be cruel and misleading for me to ever suggest that you are somehow destined to find the man of your dreams. But having said this, I do believe that love is inevitably possible. If you are capable of truly loving yourself, then others will be more inclined to love you as well. Because of this, it is almost imperative for you to understand that self-love and self-care precede romantic and faithful love. Your emotional and physical health must always come first. You can never expect men to find in you all the things that you refuse to find in yourself.

You must understand that the first step toward finding a good man is realizing that you actually deserve to be loved. You have to be willing to totally accept the fact that you are a warm and caring person who deserves to be cherished and respected by a man with character, by a man who is willing to commit to you wholeheartedly. And, a lot of times, this is the hardest thing to do.

It is not easy maintaining a high self-esteem when so many of your nights are spent frustrated and alone. It’s hard to keep up your self-confidence when the only men you seem to attract are of the low, cruddy variety. When the only men who approach you are the selfish and irresponsible dudes, or the guys who are scared to death of commitment, or the fellows who see you only as sex objects, then it’s real hard to maintain a sense of pride in yourself. After a while you begin to wonder whether or not there’s something horribly wrong with you. It isn’t long before you start questioning why love and happiness has become so elusive. Eventually, you end up closing your teary eyes at night, scared to death you will be unhappy and alone for the rest of your life.

Then, before you even realize what has happened, you start asking yourself all sorts of mean, self-depreciating questions. "Am I un attractive?" "Am I too aggressive?" "Do I look like the easy type to sex-crazed men?" "Will I ever find Mr. Right? And will he want me when I find him?"

You start taking a cruel, almost cynical look at your friends and family members, all the while asking yourself how they were able to find good men when you seem unable to. You become envious, even jealous at times. When you see young, romantic looking couples holding hands in the park or sharing short, intimate kisses, you force yourself to become numb and indifferent. But there’s a part of you that remains angry and bitter inside. There’s a part of you that becomes cold and distant, because the one thing that you desire the most is beginning to seem as though it is beyond your grasp.

And in your desperation and loneliness, you lower your standards for love, settling for a man you know is not good for you. In the back of your mind you know you deserve more, but instead, you settle for someone far less. Then you try to justify your actions by telling yourself that any man is better than no man at all. "So what, he’s a liar and cheat?" "So what, he has four kids by three different women?" "So what, he’s an ex-convict?" "So what, he’s a selfish sex partner?" You are not alone anymore, right? You have a man by your side, don’t you?

But even as you invent nice and clever little answers to these slanted questions, you know, deep inside, that you have made a mistake. The world of romance is not a yard sale. You can’t bargain love and happiness down to a cheaper price. And whenever you lower the standards for love, you only rob yourself of the immense pleasures that true love has to offer.

You look in the mirror and curse the image staring back at you. Too fat. Too thin. Too saggy. Too thick. And as you stand there, mentally picking a part every aspect of your appearance, you begin losing sight of the most obvious fact of all--a truly good man will accept you for who you are, not for what you look like.

There is not an easy answer when it comes to the problem of self-esteem and low self-confidence. You can’t just will yourself to sleep one night and then wake up the next morning feeling like you are superwoman. Life doesn’t work this way. And as human beings, we are just too sensitive in nature.

My sister, Tenisha, came to me several years ago feeling cheap and humiliated because her husband had cheated on her. I could sense her pain and confusion. Her words burned verbal holes through my heart when she wondered aloud what it was that she had done wrong. Had she been a bad wife, she wondered. Was he not satisfied with her sexually, she wondered? Each question sliced deep into my soul, pulling out tears and emotions that I hadn’t felt in years. I wanted so badly to protect her from all the suffering, to somehow go back in time and make everything right again. But I couldn’t do this, and in a way, I felt almost powerless.

Later, Tenisha decided to divorce her husband, to begin a new life and to search out a more faithful soul mate. It wasn’t easy for her to start over again. I can only imagine how lonely she felt back then, how uncertain and insecure. But she was able to cope with her loss by volunteering much of her free time as a big sister for troubled youth. She recommitted herself to God, struggling each day to become a better person. As a result, she was able to turn a stumbling block into a stepping stone.

A lot of times when you find yourself weighed down by the loneliness of life, you can find a sense of meaning and self-worth by reaching out to others. I can only tell you that some wonderful and liberating things (and also some difficult and demanding things) happen when you dedicate some of your time and energy to other people in need. You come to understand just how sacred and special life is when you are able to hold an elderly person’s hand and talk with her about the past and her interpretation on the present. Sitting down and sharing time and prayers with a sick child somehow brings out the best in us. And the more we help other people in need, the more sensitive and humane we become as a result. Life has a way of hardening our hearts, turning us into cold and cynical people. We look at the world and ourselves with eyes of bitterness and anger. But, by taking out the time to help our fellow man, we rekindle the flame of our humanity; we thaw out our hearts and make us more equipped for real love. By being special to someone else, we learn to see ourselves as special. And in this way, love and happiness start out as an experience instead of a quest.

Your confidence rises when you know that you are a good person doing good deeds for other people. When a troubled teenager tells you that he is willing to take your advice and go back to school, it has an effect on your self-esteem. You feel both needed and loved. And, many times, these are the feelings we desire the most.

True love and Mr. Right are not found in these small acts of charity, but self-love is. And, in the beginning, this is the greatest love of all. Before you can ever really accept the love of someone else, it is most important that you be able to trust, like, and love yourself.