Self-Love and Self-Esteem are vapid concepts.

This is for the ones who were never told they were enough, then told to believe it anyway.

It’s easy to say we stand for something, until those values cost us something.

People are honest, just, and compassionate, until honesty costs them influence, justice threatens their comfort, or compassion demands sacrifice.

So instead of people, we have self-love and self-esteem; our responsibility to maintain.

I think self-love and self-esteem both are vapid concepts.

People who say they love themselves usually have a social-net who meets their needs.

People who have self-esteem have had achievement markers for their esteem.

A manipulative adulterer may say “I love myself” as a justification for betrayal—framing selfishness as empowerment.

A high-school bully can maintain sky-high self-esteem by crushing others, propping up their identity on humiliation and control.

Self-love is a reflection of having been loved.

Self-esteem is the echo of having been seen, valued, or validated.

And you?

You were drowned in toxic negativity as a teenager, your self-esteem eroded under every insult, dismissal, and silence.

You were smothered in toxic positivity as an adult, your pain being ignored beneath mantras of self-love, your needs dismissed with a smile.

You were told to find worth within yourself, because nothing will be given to you without.

Self-love and self-esteem are often the byproducts of stability, not the sources of it.

It’s a philosophy of the privileged, dressed up as empowerment.