The night my grandfather fell, I was in the middle of cleaning my room. I had things all over the floor and zero interest in putting anything away. As I made my way through the piles of stuff, I came across a bookmark I had gotten from a dear friend with the words

“We think being hard on ourselves will make us strong. Actually, nurturing ourselves will make us strong. – Julia Cameron”

As I sat there on my floor reading these words over and over again, I found myself getting more teary eyed each time. I realized at that moment that what we all need most in this world is LOVE. I know it sounds corny, cheesy, hippy-ish and whatever other words of that genre you want to throw there but it’s the truth.

Everyone in this world needs love in all its forms. We need to learn how to love and be able to fully accept ourselves. We need to learn how to love and respect one another. We need to learn how to love and be at peace with the decisions we make. We need to learn how to love and show kindness to the less fortunate.

It is good to have high expectations for yourself. It is great to hold yourself to high standards and work your butt off to achieve them. Pushing yourself to be the best YOU possible and then actually becoming that person is probably one of the greatest feelings in the world (I would imagine). I have come to expect a lot from myself and because my body has repeatedly failed me and I have yet to adjust my expectations, I have been let down more times than I can count. So while being so hard on yourself has its benefits, you need to remember to be realistic as well so you don’t set yourself up for failure.

Reading this quote that late Sunday afternoon in December was eye opening for me. It made me think about how different the world would be if we all put “nurturing ourselves” as priority number one. So, despite the fact that we all know working hard and pushing ourselves does come with its own rewards please do take the time to take care of you. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Life is too damn short.