“How do I love myself without being conceited?” New Era, Mar. 1979, 37–38
“Others tell me I need to love myself. Yet how do I do this properly without being conceited?”
Answer/Brother Clark Swain, Ph.D
When a lawyer asked Jesus, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” he answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matt. 22:36–39.) Notice that Jesus said you are to love your neighbor as yourself. You are a child of God, along with your neighbor. God wants you to love yourself just as much as he wants you to love others.
To be conceited is to be proud, to be arrogant, and to have a tendency to be boastful. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins according to the Old Testament. (See Prov. 6:17.) And Jesus said, “He who exalts himself shall be humbled.” Concerning conceit the prophet Alma in the Book of Mormon asked, “Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, … that you have been sufficiently humble? … Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, If ye are not, ye are not prepared to meet God” (Alma 5:27–28.) The scriptures clearly teach, then, that you are to love yourself and avoid the sin of conceit or pride. How can you accomplish both goals?
If you truly love yourself, you will remember that you are a physical, mental, and spiritual being. Loving yourself as God wants you to means that you use wisdom in protecting your life and conserving your health in order to complete your mission on earth. This means that you live the Word of Wisdom, which includes eating regular, nutritious meals and getting plenty of exercise.
Being mentally strong includes remembering that the glory of God is intelligence. Knowing this you will want to steadily increase your knowledge and wisdom and avoid literature, movies, and conversations that would pollute your mind. We who love ourselves properly take seriously the Lord’s teaching that we are to let virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly.
Keeping yourself morally clean is loving yourself properly. In His Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48.) And in these latter days he said:
“For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;
“Nevertheless, he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven;
“And he that repents not, from him shall be taken even the light which he has received; for my Spirit shall not always strive with man, saith the Lord of Hosts.” (D&C 1:31–33). Forgiving yourself after sufficiently repenting of a sin is an important dimension of self love. God will forgive you and will remember your sins no more if you repent of them, and you also must do the same for yourself.
As you develop your talents, you will discover that you sometimes excel over others in certain activities. This does not mean that you are better than they are. Conceit comes from comparing yourself to others and concluding that you are better than they are. Comparing yourself to others can also result in either feelings of inferiority or superiority. Psychologist Maxwell Maltz says an inferiority complex and a superiority complex are merely opposite sides of the same coin. And the coin is counterfeit, for no one is either inferior or superior to anyone else. A person is just different from others. Accept yourself as the unique person that you are without comparing yourself to others. Doing this will help you love yourself properly without conceit.