“How are you going to spend the rest of your life without a partner to love? You must be crazy to think that you can have a life without a partner and children. Life will be miserable without having a family to love and give, you cannot find a purpose in life without them.” Questions, pity, and condescension are what we often times receive the moment we decide to remain single in our 20s and 30s. Eyebrows raised, character questioned or something negative has to be associated with the existence of a single girl, who remains so by choice, at any cost.
Women have been mostly raised in a manner where they mentally accept the fact that their purpose in life must be associated with someone else and serving their loved ones.
A woman is hardly ever taught to love herself first. Women of our society are mostly, even in this period of time, found doubting themselves, feeling inferior and most importantly fail to put themselves as the first priority of their lives. Unless we learn how to prioritize ourselves and love ourselves first, we can never give our best to others. Moreover, why does a woman’s life have to be about only giving? Were women meant to only give and attain nothing? Or is it us, who have been associating such roles with females for so long that it is now considered as an inherent purpose of a female to give, and take nothing?
Try loving yourself first for once and then observe how the world changes for you and you change for the world. A wise person once said, ‘Unless you have enough, you can never truly give.’ So how do we expect a female to self-hate first and then give to the people who matter to her? She will always be stuck in a perpetual cycle of guilt, not being enough as a result of which she will fail to ever give and be tagged as a failure. Today, I would like to remind my ladies how important it is for us women, to love and prioritize ourselves first.
You love yourself for the dreams you have. You love thyself with the imperfections to other’s eyes. You love yourself for the deep friendships you make through love and confidence. Once a woman enables herself to make her own existence as the topmost priority, you do not struggle to fit in with the expectation of others. You attain freedom and liberty to become who you want to be, you become YOU.
Your love for yourself will help you find your true passion, opening your doors to newer roads and challenges. The challenges that help you grow and the challenges that make you strong. Dear ladies, you are not being selfish if you decide to love and respect yourself and your passion the most. Once you keep yourself on the pedestal and treat the best, only then will you know how to give others with the brightest of hearts. Your strength, your courage will become the strength and courage of all the women you want to help. Your respect for yourself will push you to never give up and give what it takes to get where you want to be. Imagine achieving everything in life you have always wanted to.
Most importantly, accept yourself and stop comparing. The women in our little world are demeaned, condescended just through these comparisons. We women, becoming a victim of this start comparing ourselves to others as well. We lose sight of who we want to be and fail to achieve our own identity, and the moment you fail to love, respect, have faith in yourself, you fail to make your own identity.
And again, it’s alright if you decide to stay by yourself a little longer and even forever to shower yourself with the love that you deserve and the love that only you can give.

Sanjida Tanny is the founder of Contentier (more known as The Raconteuse/Storyteller) and a passionate art curator