Which one is more important: love thy neighbor or love yourself?

My emotional heart automatically exclaimed: “Don’t make me choose! It’s not fair!! It’s a cognitive trap! Those two are equally important. We can always do both, can’t we?”

Always is a strong word. I’m afraid my rational mind can’t validate this word or assumption since it has no capacity to prove that.

Can we always do both?

In what sense?

What are the chances of doing both in this corrupt society?

I want to promote “love yourself” but all I can see is narcissistic culture and consumerism.

I want to promote “love thy neighbor” but all I can see is elitism leads to discrimination, exploitation, power play and opression.

I’ve been to those hells and back.

I once had been a narcissistic one (I may still be it a bit or a lot).

I had done power play to other people (I might still do it without realizing it)

It’s frustrating and depressing.

But, I don’t want to give up and feel hopeless.

I want to do justice for my neighbor as well as for myself. Bryan Stevenson once said: Hopelessness is the enemy of justice. Hope is our superpower.

In order to do that, I need to create a new way of thinking for me (especially my heart).

Personally, I will always have this belief: Love thy neighbor is more important than love yourself.

However, I think it’s also important to have your own equal “thermometer” to regularly check the equal “temperature” of your neighbor.

The “thermometer” should contain these kind of questions: Does your neighbor treat your equally? Do you feel safe to speak your mind to your neighbor? Does your neighbor easily discriminate those who are different?

If the answers are mostly “NO”, you should be more aware.

Your neighbor might catch a flu, sorry, I mean he/she might catch a corrupt soul. Just so you know, corrupt soul disease is systematically contagious.

In that sense, I guess it’s okay to have some distance from your neighbor and Love Yourself first.