Do unto others what you would wish they would do unto you. I spent eighteen years of my life having the concept drilled into my skull, and it's done me plenty of good. I've learned kindness and sympathy, and how to connect with those who are fundamentally different from me. Society taught me this. It taught me this Golden Rule, and it's taught me plenty of other things.

Society taught me how to consider the feelings of others before speaking. Society taught me to prioritize other's needs above mine. Society taught me how to act in public and how to behave. But society never taught me to love myself.

I would like to propose an amendment to the Golden Rule.

So often I am told of the hate in this world done to other people, yet am never told a word about the hatred people so readily deal to themselves. I was told to consider such qualities to be virtuous and to put on a pedestal a self-sacrificing nature that leaves me unable to find any energy for myself. In fact, I learned to celebrate my devotion to others and to feel guilty for being anything but grateful for the hand I was dealt in life.

When my friend Sarah told me she didn't understand why the world was so cruel to her despite her attempts to be kind, I told her society was at fault, and that she deserved kindness.

When my friend Adam told me he didn't deserve anything he had in life, I assured him the person he was made him more than worthy.

When my friend Mark confessed to cutting himself in the past, I told him I was glad he was better and no longer hurting.

When I talked my friend Elliot down from killing himself, I told him that he deserved to live and that his life would get better.

But when my friend Willow said the same words to me, I told him that he was wrong, that I didn't deserve kindness, that I didn't deserve anything I had because I was a worthless person, that it was unfortunate I wasn't still hurting myself, that I didn't deserve to be alive, and that the world would be better off without me wasting air for a second longer. The planet would have been better if I had been left to die when I was born too early because, even as a newborn, I was fundamentally worthless and undeserving of love.

Now I know how irrational that sounds, but I truly did believe it at the time. I now know to treat myself with kindness, but society never taught me that. You have to hate someone a lot to be willing to do to them the things so readily done to ourselves. And now, I'd like to propose an amendment to the Golden Rule: don't do unto yourself what you wouldn't do unto others.