When we hear the word selfless we tend to think of great men and women. Perhaps we think of Jesus, Buddha, Mother Theresa, or even a person in our life that has given us a great amount of love and support. We admire these brave men and women who give everything they have so that others may benefit.

     But do we recognize the selfless acts we undertake everyday. Do we put others ahead of us in our lives? Do we act selfless? As parents, do we put our children's interests first? As husbands or wives, do we put our spouse ahead of us? As employees do we put the interests of our employer over our own?

     Our instinct is to idealize selfless acts and selfless love as a goal, something to shoot for. To put ourselves first is selfish, or so we are told. The only problem is when we act selfless we give our self less. This may be all right at times but a life of putting ourselves second is a life of leftovers and second guessing.

     We do more harm than good when we always put others above us. There are certainly times when we must sacrifice and do things for the benefit of others, but what I am talking about here is a systematic, lifelong approach where we consistently deny ourselves.

     Let's not practice selfless love, which leads to less love of self, but rather let's practice self full love, which leads to a full love of self and others. Before we can truly love another, we must love ourselves.