Monday, January 9, 2012

Purposeful Selfishness

Purposeful selfishness.
When I first heard the words, purposeful selfishness in a sentence my first thought was “selfish? We are taught and told not to be selfish- to do things for others.”  In Christianity, my point of view of selfishness is something the Bible speaks against. However, lately I have realized maybe some of us need to be selfish sometimes. A lot of people, including myself, will stretch themselves so thin. If you are like me you will climb over every obstacle, do things you hate, and sacrifice your happiness and time to make others happy or complacent for that matter.
Right now, I’m in the process of quitting a job. I hate this job. I’m not happy there. I leave and go home crying some days (when you get to that point in a job it is more than likely time to quit!). It has been over a week since I said I quit yet I am still there. The reason I bring this up is I could have been out of there sooner! I could have been out of there last week. However I was thinking of others and not myself. I thought about the bind I could leave them in. Who will they hire? Should I leave after they have trained someone for my spot? This job means nothing to me and I mean nothing to these people except another person to cover a shift. This business will not collapse if I’m not there. They won’t cry. The world will go on, I’m sure. At the moment, I’m also in the process of starting another job and have a ton of other activities going on in my life yet I still play nice and roll over and take the shifts I’m offered knowing quite well I will be completely overwhelmed; And when I get overwhelmed, waking up everyday hurts.
If you are anything like me and struggling with an eating disorder, being overwhelmed often leads to me breaking down and letting my disordered behaviors continue. When I overwhelm myself and it is too hard to get out of bed and everyday seems like a huge feat I cannot take on, ED steps on in and I become more trapped.
Where is this lesson going you ask? Well purposeful selfishness is essentially looking out for yourself. Take time out to do things for yourself. If you are not happy change the situation or get out of the situation if it is making you miserable.
Remember here, I’m not preaching that we step all over people and make others miserable but you need to make sure you are taken care of. Think about this way- you need/want to take care of others but first you need to make sure you are okay before you help others. A drug addict won’t be good at helping another drug addict if they are not in a stable state of mind. On an airplane, when oxygen masks are distrusted an adult has to put on their safety mask before they can help the child. Right? 

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