I won’t make this long. I know that reading a long article would just be another chore. You feel totally dead. You’re emotionally drained and vitality doesn’t exist in you right now.

As soon as you’re done here, put the phone down and close the laptop. Lay on your back and close your eyes. You’re going to study yourself for a second. You are two different beings.

One is this human-thing you are responsible for taking care of. They react to all this stuff that happens and have thoughts and emotions that enter their mind when things happen a certain way. Their name is Human.

The other is the one at the command center. Imagine that there is a literal “you” sitting in front of a bunch of screens and buttons. This one’s name is You. You controls everything but Human has quite a bit of influence in the whole process. This one is who you really are.

Ask yourself these things and spend significant time on each.

• How does Human respond when these things happen the way they do? What thoughts and emotions appear on screen when X happens?
• How does You feel toward Human and toward the situation when Human responds this way? Does You wish Human would just get up but no buttons are working?
• Why does Human respond this way to these things?

That’s it. You feel like you can’t do much right now, but you can think. Start thinking in terms of You and Human, from now until forever. Things are a lot easier this way.

To conclude, when people say “love yourself,” they’re talking about when You loves Human despite Human’s endless flaws and complications. Start loving yourself despite your inability to get out of bed. Everything else will fall into place.