Some people think petty theft is somehow sticking it to the man . Before retiring , I worked at a software company that had a food court with small versions of regional restaurants . A coworker of mine who makes $ 250 k year steals breakfast from the morning buffet place it was somewhat organized chaos and very easy to walk out without anyone noticing . I have absolutely no idea why he thinks that would hurt our employer since the restaurants are independently run stealing extra free soda or napkins which are provided by our company , yes . Food , no , but he did it and probably still does at least once a week or whenever he felt particularly screwed over by our company . <| sep |> are you trying to refute the idea that you need to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else ? To a certain extent , yes . This gets thrown around so much it ' s pretty much lost all meaning . I don ' t fully agree with the statement . Obviously , one needs to have a certain amount of self respect and such before expecting anyone else to want to spend time with them . Nobody wants to be with a cynical person who hates themselves , people and the world . But the whole You have to learn to love yourself before anyone else can love you I find to be such a huge generalization , and to be so vague as to be basically meaningless . I also argue that you can ' t boil down complex human emotions such as attraction , love , friendship , relationships down to a simple , 1 sentence catch phrase and apply it to anyone and everyone . And as to my rebut , it ' s just what it says . How can a person learn how to LOVE somethingsomeone when they are stuck in isolation ? You can ' t learn to love yourself if you don ' t even have the slightest idea what love is , and nobody to show you what it is . I ' ve been the lonely single guy still am and I ' ve could not even COUNT how many times people said that to me . but what does it actually mean ? Learn to love yourself ? As opposed to . just being okay with yourself ? Should I take myself out to a romantic dinner and try to flirt with me ? I get the general sentiment behind it , but I think at best it ' s a feel good It ' ll get better comment , more to make the commenter feel better about themselves than to make the commentee feel better , and at worst it ' s bad advice that can push people away from trying to form relationship . Gee , well I ' ve absolutely hated myself for the last 5 years and I ' ve tried everything to ' love myself ', so I guess it ' s never going to happen and I should give up because I can ' t accomplish what the person on the internet said I should do .