Of self love

I remembered once our community medicine lecturer told me something I actually found interesting to hear (for once). He asked us who it is that we admire. Who we see as a role model. A person we look up to. After a few people gave out names of famous heros, prime ministers and esteemed professionals, he came out with a simple sentence.

"It is not them that we admire, in fact it is ourselves." He said. After a brief pause with an answering silence he went on "We only admire these people because we are able to see ourselves in them."

I suppose we covet that which is not ours, and most know this to be true. But materialistic scopes arent all. We covet even the character of others that we wish we ourselves had. We admire others only for our hopes of being as good as them, to have what they have. Our want is endless, and our self love has no limiting depth. Is it admiration, or is it an envy? A jealous obsession that bears the semblance of goal reaching and improvement?

Perhaps his opinion is not truth. Perhaps it is not self-love. Perhaps it is. We've such a capacity for greed and self-importance. True. Yet we've an equal capacity for compassion. Compassion and empathy of a self-less kind. I pray it is the latter not the former that we gravitate our lives on.