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Examples Of An Ode To Self-Discovery

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An Ode to Self-discovery
Discovering and learning to love oneself is often a challenging adventure. It can be a sweet and quiet awakening or a loud and abrupt revelation. Realizing who you really are and who you want to become is a truly bittersweet journey, but when opening our hearts to this riveting experience we might find how wonderful it is. The poem "Love after Love" by Derek Wallcott expresses how exciting it could be to simply discover ourselves. In the poem, Wallcott directs himself to a “you” in distress, the “you” confused about life and self. "Love after Love" represents the times in life where we feel lost and have to learn, accept and embrace who we are.
To learn who we are is to knock on a stranger's door. Previously to meeting …show more content…

At times, some of us are raised in environments where it might be dangerous to be ourselves. Taught to believe that we are not good enough, worthy or accepted, we fear being ourselves. Other times we create our own insecurities and fears, convincing ourselves that we have to meet other people’s illusive standards. Despite the fact that we accept ourselves, we believe that our imperfections will stop others from loving us. To embrace who we have to acknowledge that not everyone will accept it and that the only one that has to love our persona is us. Realizing that our intrinsic worth is greater than anything superficial means understanding that who we are will always be more valuable and powerful than the mask we wear in public. Once we embrace ourselves we can start living a good and wholesome life, appreciating the “little things” in life because a weight that was preventing us from holding our head up has been removed from our shoulders. As Wallcott writes, “Sit. Feast on your life”, because when we embrace who we are we can finally enjoy life to the fullest extent.
Derek Wallcott’s poem “Love after Love” is an ode to the self. He assures the reader, a lost “you” in distress, that at a future moment you will come to "greet yourself arriving /at your own door, in your own mirror /and each will smile at the other's welcome, ". Wallcott’s poem about self-discovering, and coming to love oneself helps the reader understand the importance in accepting and authentically being ourselves. "Love after Love" represents the times in life where we feel lost and have to learn, accept and embrace who we

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