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Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

On the core of the piece

> It is commonly, and truly, said that you can only love someone as well as you love yourself.

> I’ve worked with patients [...]

I wish it was clear from the start that they're looking at it through a pathological lens. The advice is worded as some generic fortune cookie wisdom, and I personally think that's a pretty big leap.

In general people should care about themselves and understand their impact on others. But that doesn't need to be "love", and the author seems aware of it, as the nitty gritty parts he describes are more varied than some single umbrella approach.

The "love yourself" meme has been used and abused for so long, I personally found it grating and inadequate for the people we wish to actually help. I'd wish we retire it.

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i prefer self-acceptance.

once i learn to accept (grateful receipt of) myself (who i am, what i’ve done, what’s been done to me, what i do today) then it’s easier to accept (grateful receipt of) other people (who they are etc).

compassion is possibly apt too

> Deep awareness of the suffering of another accompanied by the wish to relieve it

ditto on self-acceptance being much easier to grasp and champion than self-love

> In general people should care about themselves and understand their impact on others. But that doesn't need to be "love"

I agree that anything can become overused cliche. Still, I think the parent comment is like saying, 'people need sustenance but that doesn't need to be water'. There is nothing more essential.

People need love like we need water. We are social organisms, living in groups; we are not like bears who live alone. The lack of love makes us ill and drives us to madness. We've seek, with everything we have, to love and be loved; you can see it in love between parent and child, between family, friends, and romantic partners. These things are universal to humanity - you can find them in every culture, and every culture's stories. Evolution, survival of the fittest, etc. has resulted in that.

And it starts with love of self; how could you love someone else, or be comfortable with them loving you, if you didn't think you were worth love. I've never heard of anyone who seriously studies such things say otherwise; I'd be interested in any references to such people.

> people need sustenance but that doesn't need to be water

The analogy is apt enough IMHO, so let me stretch it.

You wouldn't tell someone holding a melon they absolutely need water or they'll die. You'd tell them to eat the melon, and see if they can get more water from there. If all their hydration ends up coming from different sources than pure water, you wouldn't tell them they're screwed.

The "love yourself" sounds the same to me. There's a thousand ways people can deal with themselves. Self preservation, understanding what they bring to others, what they mean to others why they're needed can and will happen outside of what people call "love".

In particular that "advice" will be pushed toward people who can be in the worst place to reinterpret and adapt it to their needs.

> There's a thousand ways people can deal with themselves. Self preservation, understanding what they bring to others, what they mean to others why they're needed can and will happen outside of what people call "love".

But those things don't provide love, which is (also) essential. People need love even to pursue self-preservation and helping others; it's the people without love that commit s*de.

Why is it important to build a model that excludes love, which seems obvious and overwhelmingly present?

I think the focus on love blurs the message, while ironically putting the bar a lot higher depending on what the person perceives as love.

To put it a bit bluntly, there's a laziness in wording it that way that IMHO comes with a real cost.

> blurs the message

We're starting to go in circles becauase I think you are assuming there is some other message. Love is the fundamental of the message (see GP), according to almost everyone with expertise and many others who have thought about it and experienced it (as far as I know).

That doesn't make it undeniable; still I think we need to address it to go forward. On what grounds do you dismiss it? Inconvenience isn't related to truth.

Having spent many years very close to people with shit childhoods that deal with depression and other issues, I'd say one of the biggest hurdles was indeed being able to create a positive self image of themselves.

There's some people that think "they are depressive" the same way some people think "they have a penchant for being late to things". All these negative self images just perpetuate behaviors and trains of thought that go nowhere positive.

There's a lot of regular people that hear that and think that's justification to being narcissistic selfish assholes, but that's like all advice, you should first see if it applies to you.

> depression

I see depression as specific states that requires different handling. The analogy is limited, but if you break your arm you'll heal it in different ways than if you're just tired.

For people not reaching critical states, creating a positive image of one self doesn't need to come from within. As the article points out, one can start by interacting with others, and getting enough positivity from it to also change self-perception or at least self management.

To borrow another meme, "believe in me that believes in you" effectively works as well.

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