WORTHY OF LOVE?

A relationship expert recently spoke about love and how people feel about their worthiness:
“I hear it all the time; singles or married couples say they’re not rich enough, or they need to lose weight, or they just don’t think they’ll find what they want. But I say nothing is perfect, and if you think that you’ll only be good enough when you’ve lost five pounds, or have a nice car or a bigger house, then you will never be ‘good enough.’”
The same report cited a survey that found that all respondents -- singles as well as committed or married couples -- said they still believe in lasting love and if there was a way to learn to find true love, they would try it.
So there you have it: We all want love and believe in love, but few, or none, of us thinks we are worthy of it.
How sad for us.
Is it because we seek a certain perfection in our mate, especially our soulmate, that we do not find in ourselves? Or is it just because we have grown up with such low self-images, such low self-esteem that none of us feels worthy of this ultimate gift of love, most especially the love of a lifetime?
This is not a criticism, just the mental meanderings of a fellow seacher. For I, too, feel unworthy of love, even more so today than ever before. For nothing brings on the certainty of unworthiness quite like fresh rejection. When the one you love chooses another over you, what other conclusion can be reached? Obviously, they looked at you and found you wanting, unworthy, unacceptable. And, unlike others whom I sometime envy, I cannot so easily chalk this up to their "poor taste." Quite the contrary, life experience has taught me well that, much like that overused and laughable rejection line, "it's not you, it's me," seems to apply. 
When she chooses someone who obviously does not respect, appreciate or understand her, who does not treat her well or tries, and most often succeeds, in controlling her rather than loving her, when she'd rather have him over someone who truly loves her, without condition or pride, then what possible conclusion can be reached? Clearly, you are not worthy. Certainly, not worthy of her.
The only real wonder here is that any of us, having suffered such rejection and perfectly cemented in our feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness, retains any belief in and hope for love. Why do we still cling to the belief love still is out there, waiting for us, around the next corner, over the coming hill? What gives us the belief, in the face of all this persistent rejection, that love still is worth it?
Because in our hearts, where the love really dwells, we know that finding that right person, the one who will love us as much as we love them, is worth whatever we have to endure. Besides, to surrender our hope for love is to give up on life itself. And that is a crime of self-hate most of us are incapable of.
No, despite the rejections, in spite of our own inner inadequacies, we have to hope love. And look for love. And pray for love. And, at least in my case, wait for love. 
To return.
To reconsider.
To rejoin us.
To reject the other.