Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't love others until you love yourself. Sometimes you'll hear people say that you can't expect someone else to love you until you love yourself. Either way, you've got to love yourself first and this can be tricky. Sure we all know that we're the apple of our parents' eyes, and that our Grandmas think we're great talents and our Uncle Roberts think that we will go to the Olympics, but sometimes it's a lot harder to think such nice thoughts about ourselves. If you find that believing in yourself is a challenge, it is time you build a positive sell-image and learn to love yourself.

Self-image is your own mind's picture of yourself. This image includes the way you look, the way you act, the way you talk and the way you think. Interestingly, our self-images are often quite different from the images others hold about us. Unfortunately, most of these images are more negative than they should be. Thus changing the way you think about yourself is the key to changing your self-image and your whole world.

The best way to defeat a passive self-image is to step back and decide to stress your successes. That is, make a list if you need to, but write down all of the great things you do every day. Don't allow doubts to occur in it.

It very well might be that you are experiencing a negative self-image because you can't move past one flaw or weakness that you see about yourself. Well, roll up your sleeves and make a change of it as your primary task. If you think you're silly because you aren't good at math, find a tutor. If you think you're weak because you can't run a mile, get to the track and practice. If you think you're dull because you don't wear the latest trends, buy a few new clothes. But remember, just because you think it doesn't mean it's true.

The best way to get rid of a negative serf-image is to realize that your image is far objective, and to actively convince yourself of your positive qualities. Changing the way you think and working on those you need to improve will go a long way towards promoting positive self-image. When you can pat(拍)yourself on the back, you'll know you're well on your way. Good luck!

Yang Fei, a man in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, has painted anti-poverty stories of the Jinjiang village in the province’s Yongsheng county in the form of 30 different short cartoons.

After graduating from the Film and Television Animation Institute of the Communication University of Shaanxi in 2009, Yang began to work in the culture house of Yunnan’s Lijiang City. Yang was sent to the Jinjiang Village in 2017 in his first such job, where he stayed for a month working on explaining government poverty alleviation(扶贫) policies to the villagers, and he was again sent to the village in August this year to monitor the poverty work.

“After staying more than 20 days in the Jinjiang Village in August, I was quite impressed with different changes the village had undergone under different poverty alleviation efforts, and I came up with the idea of painting cartoons to tell others the marvelous stories,” Yang said.

After getting back to Baoshan Village of the province’s Yulong County where he works currently as a volunteer of poverty alleviation, he worked on the cartoons in the evenings after work. After working more than two weeks, his more than 30 pages of cartoon drew to an end. Drawing cartoons is a way Yang tries to keep and remember his experiences as a poverty alleviation official, and he was encouraged by his colleagues to produce more such work in the future.

Yang has accepted the request of his colleagues, and plans to paint some cartoons telling the stories of the poverty work team of the Baoshan Village.

Having a job is great, I have learned. It means I can afford things such as a place to live and daily meals. And with an above-average job, I can afford a car and occasional overseas vacations.

However, I also understand how difficult it is to have a below-average job, having had many of them before. It’s frankly pretty awful. Owning a car was out of the question – I could barely afford to ride the subway.

So, I decided to go to university and get a degree.

Later, I emailed my details to every company and government institution with an online careers page. I even printed my resume and handed it out in what seemed like hundreds of office buildings.

One summer during university, my cousin and I helped out at my uncle’s business, fixing roofs, although the only thing I got out of that was back problems.

That same year, I got a job at a plumbing(管道工程) company, which I was terrible at. It was no surprise when I was asked to leave that job after only four days.

A lot of people today believe the problem of unemployment in my generation is our fault. Some accuse us of being lazy or feeling too entitled(有资格的). At the same time, some people accuse members of my generation of having a sense of “specialness” that has led us to believe we can all be astronauts, movie stars or singers if we put our minds to it. Also, a few of them think that we would all be happily employed if we would only learn trades or become software engineers, because those people make the most money.

I realize that not everyone can go into space, star in Hollywood movies or fill stadiums with fans, however. I also think not everyone can make a good electrician or design advanced computer software – I know I can’t. Everyone is good at something, but no one is good at everything. It took me hundreds of rejection emails to realize that I had to focus on finding a job where I could actually be successful.

And now, I finally have that job. All it took was several years of desperation, failure and an honest assessment(评估) of my personal value in the job market.

It’s not the best start, but it’s not bad for a start too.