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One of my previous challenges, and something that’s followed me throughout my life until recently, was the fact I CARED TOO MUCH for people. Everyone else’s needs always came before my own. Before I knew it somehow I’d become just another “nice guy” who’s futile attempt to please everyone only wound up surmounting me to assume the dishonorable role as a doormat to humanity, and overwhelmingly so in the majority of all my closest relationships.
It’s a high cost to pay since ultimately it’s a role that requires the sacrifice of one’s own dignity and abandoning it by the wayside.
An overdose of people pleasing can inadvertently push you off the edge. It’s slippery slope of disconnection, first signaling the loss of personal identity within oneself, and over time as our own needs, wants and desires continue to become squandered and shoved to the background more and more, obviously we begin to disconnect with all those immediately surrounding us as well.
It doesn’t take much of a rocket scientist to take one quick look around and notice the jumbled up, depressed, anxious, stressed out mess we’ve collectively created through reinforcing the fixed mindset of “putting other people before ourselves.”
Well, who I am today perceives people and the world around me much differently, and while I still haven’t lost my familiar knack of sensitivity for feeling compassion and empathy towards others, I’ve also most certainly taken massive measures to buckle down on all my boundaries.
Now I’m not saying it isn’t important to help others, it undoubtedly is, but what’s even more important than the constant need to be of service, is finding a way to develop enough self-awareness to where you know when you’ve crossed that line in offering yourself a bit too much to others to the point you’ve seemingly forgotten about self-care, and hereby lost yourself in the process.
Self-care is not selfish, it’s creating a strong foundation. Why would you only want to give people what’s left of you, when they could receive the best of you instead?
To be blunt, hearing another person’s sob story doesn’t phase me anymore. Mainly because I’ve seen some shit myself, and if you’ve been following me long enough either here through my articles, or on social media, then you very well know I’ve been through the ringer, and these days I have zero inclination to pull my dick out at the pity party in order to compare who has the biggest victim tale or story of suffering.
These days I’m very choosy who receives my compassion. Because although I’m empathetic, I now expect people to hold their own and carry their own weight just like I’ve always had to do.
I mean who the hell says you need to help everyone anyways? I sure don’t. I only point the way for those interested in helping themselves. I simply don’t have the energy to carry people anymore, nor do I want too.
I prefer the role of being way-shower through my experiences, not a ski lift. I’m not down with people assuming they can just hop onboard anytime at my expense, in order to get another free ride up the mountain.
Now I simply just point the way, and then from there it’s up to the people on how they sort themselves out.
Life’s a journey that’s learned through experience. Don’t cheat people from falling. There’s only one way you learn how to rise, and that way is by you falling flat on your face countless times.
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