The Truth About Self-Esteem

We hear often that the most important thing in love, relationships, and perhaps even in life, is to love yourself.

"You might be overweight, but the most important thing is to love yourself."
"You can't manifest anything if you don't love yourself first."
"I would much rather love myself than have a nice body."

It is reasonable to want to have self-respect and esteem before undertaking any other lifelong activity or habit (e.g. the gym), or going out further into the world, meeting people more unlike ourselves with new expectations, away from what we're familiar with.

But something about THE NATURE OF LOVE AND SELF-LOVE needs to be taken into account before we endeavor to love ourselves.

We love ourselves the same way we love other people.

We love other people, or are fascinated by them, when at first sight they appear to be beings with a spark in their eye, who are smart enough to remain attractive, and display a promising radiance, beneficial to both you and them. A person who is obviously strong from many hours toiling at the gym receives far more automatic respect than someone who advertises they are fast food fanatics.

And of course, achievements are a huge love-magnet. But someone can have had a million achievements, and be the worst at confidently stating what he's done, so he is not easy to regard highly. Most people with great achievements do garner greater confidence as a result, but ironically it is not the achievements themselves that make these individuals so interpersonally desirable, but rather the increased and intoxicating confidence that occurs as a result.

Some people with little to no achievements somehow manage to run about the world with their head held up high, and they advertise the ability to take on the world, and everyone loves them as a result. These people are usually younger folk, because an older person who hasn't achieved much will have a harder time convincing others.

When we fall in love or find ourselves greatly admiring someone else, our love magnetizes towards them because of these qualities they show. They not only display these personality and achievement qualities to others, but also themselves.

Our love's expectations for others are the same expectations our love has for ourselves. But in order to discover what exactly that love is, we have to see that love for what it is. Love in this since is not appreciation or gratitude. It is not polite or sacrificial. It is impactful enough that we want to be like the person we see, or want to be with them. It is infatuation, admiration, desire, and envy.

When we gain these charismatic and high-achieving characteristics, whether through birth or struggle, we will automatically love ourselves. Whether it's a new haircut, a raise, a new clothing style, a better home (or cleaner room), a perfected or fun dialect -- all of these things contribute to magnetizing our love, and we automatically love ourselves more as a result, with no emotional effort on our part. It just happens!

Things that are lovable are easy to love -- we can't help loving them. This includes ourselves. Make yourself easy to love, and your love will rush towards yourself like mad. At the same time, things that are not lovable are difficult to love, if not impossible to. If we must appreciate someone or something for whatever reason, the best we can do is ignore the unlovable aspect.

Love is not a choice. When we fall in love, it is definitely not a choice.* It is the same with loving oneself. We can "choose" to love ourselves, but this is a purely intellectual endeavor, and does not stir our love, though it may stir other aspects of our insides. Coming to true self love in the most profound sense is only achieved by an envisioning of who we could be, and after an objective look at where we are with ourselves (physically, financially, emotionally) and what we desire to change. We have to earn the love of others, and we have to earn our own love, too.

Confidence breeds confidence. Success breeds success. An amazing body will have us rushing to dress ourselves in amazing clothes. An amazing self-image will push us to get the best living and economic situation for ourselves. One step towards a more lovable you opens more doors for a more lovable you.

Most people block out this reasoning because everyone wants to be inherently lovable under all circumstances. Newborns and infants who come into the world helpless and in need of nurturing, attention, affection, and caring ARE worthy of this unconditional love, however. But once we grow up, our love is selective about who it latches onto -- it's even selective about loving ourselves or not. Our love is choosy about how it feels about us, the same way our love is choosy about who we'd like to date.

Our love's main purpose is to rush towards those with the highest survival and replication value. We automatically admire the strong man, some people lust over large breasts, we automatically take into higher account someone speaking with a deeper tone, we prefer the company of popular (but nice) people instead of negative loners, when someone sends us a needy text message we grimace, we magnetize towards tall people in social situations, because in ancient times, these actions were essential to survive. Today we have government safety cushions, technology, biweekly paychecks, and grocery stores to help us survive, but our nervous system's discretion -- that is, our love's discretion -- has not changed. The field is different, but the game is the same.

What can you do to make yourself more lovable today?

*In the moment, falling in love is out of our control, but, with self-improvement and efforts at a large pool of dating options ahead of time, we can prevent premature attachment to an individual who may not love us back.

Number One Rule of PUA: Do Not Talk About PUA and Demonstrating Low Social Value

Talking about PUA outside of forums and fellow real-life Pick Up Artists should be a big NO. It should be this way for a few reasons, and the one of utmost importance might not be the one that you're thinking.

This goes for ALL GUYS interested in or a part of PUA in any way.

Of course, you might be thinking that what I mean is, "Don't tell anyone that you're 'gaming' them, or that you read pick-up tactics online and then perform them when you're trying to pick them up, because it will be awkward since they'll know what you're up to." That's not exactly what I mean, although that is definitely something to consider when trying to earn a hottie's trust in the comfort stage of your pickup.

Like nerds who get really wrapped up in a video game they incessantly discuss with friends, i.e. nerds with particularly low social skills or low social experience, what tends to happen is that aspects of game or game itself begins to be referred as if everyone else you met knew what you were talking about, when they don't. This is a huge social devaluation of yourself, i.e., it makes you look like a huge loser.

I'll formulate a harmless example and then lead into instances I have seen master PUAs make this blunder on public YouTube videos still available to the general public (if you have no idea what "master PUA" is, they're just semi-famous dudes who have a lot of experience picking up successfully).

Imagine you are banging a beautiful blond with amazing skin who is, admittedly, a little twinky, but has come to love your new musculature and ignites your newly discovered instinct to protect with his toned but limber build. (If you're straight pretend it's a chick.) He is obedient and he arouses a cocktail of hormones and emotions from you without instilling oneitis from you. Ahem, anyway, you are dining with his family, and you have brought along your nine year old brother; you're both staying at his family's over a long weekend. The conversation is settling, and your boy toy Brendan (let's call him) is brushing his leg against yours, his breath noticeably shallower, and he's wondering how you're going to fuck him this time because you've made damn sure sex is not a predictable hurtle with him. Your in-laws say something like, "Glad you guys just graduated, because tuition is on the rise!" and your brother says, "Yeah, it's over 9000!" and beams you with a smirk you are obliged to return.

Your in-laws and boyfriend go, ".......haha....ha..?" and turn to you for a light explanation, so they can genuinely give a hearty laugh with your sibling. You find yourself scratching the back of your head, managing a laugh, and explaining what an internet meme is, why your brother knows it, and why it's at all funny (if you don't know what it is, you're not missing anything, and neither was anyone at that table, as they'll come to learn).

A harmless example. He's nine for God's sake, and this instance probably won't stop Brendan from monitoring condom/lube count before your routine tip-toeing into his bedroom. But what if it's a PUA doing the same thing -- and a so-called MASTER one, at that?

Allow me to piece together instances I have seen this take place, by so-called master PUAs. This is really a shame because I have come to really admire these dudes, but Neil Strauss, author of The Game, and Tyler from Real Social Dynamics have pulled this. Strauss, in his Jimmy Kimmel Live interview, is obviously being grilled about his magical abilities to pick up women, a difficult and unenviable position for any guy to be put into -- imagine getting asked, "So, tell me more about your elusive ability to be the best at women, and better than anyone else here, including that really good-looking guy over there, me, and that guy making out with that woman. Say, can you pick her up?" etc. In fact Kimmel asks Strauss if he can pick up Jessica Alba who is right at his side. Strauss laughs and retorts, "Well, I don't know talk show game."

Silence.

Then slowly Kimmel and Alba put together the nerd lingo that Strauss is using. "Ah," they visibly think. "He uses 'game' as a thing. It's how they speak, when they configure how to pick up elusive women and get that elusive sex they work so hard for. That's nice." If you squirmed at least a little when that came out of Neil's mouth, maybe your anxiety is a little high, but MAYBE you have the social intelligence to know that in-private lingo with anyone else actually demonstrates low social value because, as far as anyone else knows, you're conniving with other losers who have to implement complicated-sounding strategies to achieve things (sex) that others can do without the planning and mental schema you use.

Tyler has an in-field video (translation: a live YouTube video of him picking up women to prove his worth to guys wondering if they should take his advice) where he has a chick laughing outside a club. He's demonstrating no fear by literally clinging onto her, which she takes humor in, but what comes out of his mouth sent a chill down my spine. "Ahhhh, don't leeeeave me!" he says (lol -- that's not the bad part). "You just can't, I'm PUA!"

The grueling part of this phrase is that it is so obvious to anyone, whether they know what PUA is or they think it stands for Pet Uprising Association, is that the person saying it thinks it makes them cool as shit. The natural mental response is, "Uh, that's not cool as shit, I don't even know what that is," or, "Uh, being a self-proclaimed Pick-Up Artist doesn't make you cool as shit [which is true, guys], but maybe it does with your group of loser friends." Even if someone does think being a PUA is cool, phrasing it like that is such an awkward self-promoting tactic that even the likest mind will backwards-rationalize that you're a moron for saying that.

Imagine at a college reunion, that some students are welcomed with 'Cum Laude Badges,' and some are not. Whether or not you would've earned one, picture three friends with the badges about to get their picture taken, when a fourth good friend rushes into the picture, grabs one of their wastes, and utters, "Ahh, please let me in too, I'm CLB!"

Uh...you're what, bro?

Visibly painting yourself into an elite group is just not the way to sell your higher value to other people. If you're part of the in crowd, you will not need to advertise it. Simple as that.