Hi, this is Mr. Jenkins from Corcoran State Prison. Today’s topic will be, “Do you love yourself?” Reason why I picked topic is because in the prison system we have a lot of young men and women doesn’t know how to theyself or love anybody else.
We have guys that—learning how to realize, to love theyself and beyond, to be able to love theyself, to even love anybody else, you have to love yourself. So, the whole thing is we have been teaching young men in the prison system, what? When we say love, there is 1000 ways to love yourself, 1000 ways to love somebody—not, you know, people look at physical, but no. You can love somebody, emotionally and be able to teach and to learn what that word means. We have a context of that word meaning one thing, but it doesn’t, it means a lot more than one thing. You have to be able to identify what is that word, that four letter word is. And in the prison system, we have guys that use it but don’t mean it. And it [inaudible]. so my conscience with that is to find out what that word means to you. Find out what is the contents of it. Find out what really, really what it stands for, don’t use something, a word as that word, if you doesn’t know the content and you doesn’t really believe in and you really doesn’t understand it. It means- that word means a lot, it has a lot of gold. It’s like a love word and L-O-V-E, it’s like gold. And some people use it as a filler. But if you use it correctly, it’s a beautiful thing, more than what you think it is.
You are, you always have to be able to identify yourself as “Hey, I love myself.” Do you love yourself more than you love anybody else? Do you love yourself more than you love a pair of shoes? Do you love yourself? Do you love playing sports? You ask yourself [unintelligible]? How much do you love yourself? And when it’s a good time to find out how much do you love yourself? And so, take that, and use that, and don’t tell anybody that you love them until you know you love yourself because that word can get misconstrued, and out of context, people have a way of using that the wrong way.
And never use something that’s supposed to be a blessing—never use something that supposed to be of value, a word that really means something—and take it for granted. So, never take something for granted if you doesn’t know and you doesn’t understand it. The word love is, what it means, is to be able to love someone, a butterfly [unintelligible], a person but you have to do—number one—you have to love yourself first before you love anything. To love being on Earth, that’s number one. Love God, that’s number one. But to be able to love your mom and dad and your siblings, make sure you love yourself before you love anything else.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.