The Eighth Principle of Self-love is that you must do good to yourself and others and that will break down the barriers inside your head and heart that prevent happiness in yourself from emerging but do it to see that you are good not to earn a sense of that you are good.
Happiness is identical to seeing and feeling that you are good enough to be happy. You have to get out there and help as many people as you can to see your goodness and you have to do it forever. Remember that what you do for yourself is as important. Just see how good you are. You don’t work to win happiness but to get rid of the clutter that prevents you from experiencing it.
Once you start liking yourself even a bit you will develop better feelings of love for yourself gradually so the only way is up but patience is vital! The fact that you have started to like yourself makes you a good person even if the opportunity to do some good has not come yet for your heart is good so liking yourself gives you a reason to like yourself and you must stand by that reason unconditionally. You must believe the reason is valid no matter what evil you will ever do. And why not? It is a good reason.
All desires are bad in a sense for they are at least a bit painful – they crave something you don’t have so they are painful. This tells us that we should fill our minds with the desire to be happy through making others happy for the lust for money and anger and hate are more painful and harder and therefore too painful. You should have desires you enjoy having because that makes them worth the pain.
You need other people to do good for them so that you will like yourself better so that you will see that you are good and happiness will be yours. It is too hard and often impossible to like yourself enough any other way. You need to work for a healthy self-image by being nice to others or by trying to and you need to do this all your life for you will wake up some mornings and not like yourself a lot so you need to keep on working to keep you happy with what you are. Do not think that you must do good just to prove you are good but to remind yourself that you are good. You could even keep a diary to help you see for the person you forget to pat on the back when you achieve something is most often yourself. You can’t lose the insight of how good you are for it encourages you to do better in the future.
Do not love yourself because of your good works or even love yourself on the basis that you will be very good and nice if your past is not much to be proud of. Love yourself unconditionally. No matter what you do, you ought to love yourself which means grabbing happiness eagerly with both hands. Not loving or liking yourself will not do you or anybody else any good at all. But loving and liking yourself will make you of benefit to yourself and others for it makes you happy to be a force for good in the world.
