If You’re Generous, Be Generous to Yourself First #Advicetomyself
Once I heard Jay Shetty saying that him being a natural giver led to many disappointments earlier. For people couldn’t show up as much as he did. While he was expecting. Then, someday he realized that relationships are no bazaar. If you give you give, if you don’t you don’t. Useless to wait upon another party to be fully in as you count yourself to be. The moment he realized how self-destructive our expectations of other people are, his life has changed.
I think I’ve got a similar problem. When I give, I give, I want to give and do it with pleasure. Try to find the best present possible, try to bring up positive emotions in another person, give him or her a rest. But when they don’t reciprocate, it breaks your heart. And it’s not even the money, but attention and effort that count.
Thus, disappointment has been my life partner for long. My dream job — the foreign office, I gave all myself in. And left it when there was no more to give, not even bare minimum to sustain myself. Friendships, too. I put in effort to make our time being together memorable and special. I would suggest interesting events, cooking together, pyjama parties, spontaneous trips and adventures, I would spend all my salary on buying presents to my friends and colleagues from abroad, since I traveled extensively with this job. But when you see people choosing «them» over «us», that breaks your heart to the point that you no longer want to be part of «us».
My friends say I’m idealist and have too high expectations from everything and everyone. That my expectations cannot be met. Perhaps. There is truth to that. It’s easy for me to detach from material things. Whatever I have — clothes, gadgets, you name it — I can give it away at any moment. I often did so — gave away designer clothes, accessories, anything I had.
When being a student and getting a good monthly stipend in Vienna, I would spend my money buying presents to each and every relative we are in contact with. My cousins, their wives… A thought of saving that money and buying myself, say a car, later never seriously crossed my mind.
With any job I had, if somebody was trying to manipulate me in a way that I should be grateful for having this job (such things are no rarity in my country, for there are connections that often assist in employment), I could easily leave everything and walk away. No regrets, just lessons learned.
When people asked my help, I tried to help.
Still, I ain’t no Robin Hood. I’m selfish in many ways, like I love doing things my way, love doing things when and how I want, so if someone’s appeal for help doesn’t correspond to my plans or values, I can easily cut them off. It’s with the closest circle — my parents and friends, basically that I have an incentive to give.
When they — people I love and share with, cannot give or show up for me, that’s heartbreaking. Such thing marks a scar on my heart. For instance, once I was in another city and had an important interview to pass, I asked my cousin to offer me one plain white shirt for a day. And she had plenty of business shirts. To my surprise she gave me the one she never wore — oversize, bulky, hard to iron — disaster of a shirt. It gave me no confidence for the interview next day. That felt bitter, for I gave her so many of brand new clothes — high quality, expensive, with expensive watches, purses, and etc. Just cause I felt like clearing up my closet when moving to the next stage of my life.
My dad not giving me keys from his car, being afraid I’d scratch it… I feel, and I hope, that’s genuine, that if I had a car, I’d give it to him easily, whenever he needed it, even if for long or forever.
I hardly comprehend stinginess. Though, I can’t judge. People earn things differently and they treat things differently. Therefore, they share things differently. Maybe deep inside I’m stingy too. When you love something or someone, you don’t want to share it with anybody, right?
For example, I always considered myself as a person far from jealousy. But then I realized, when you truly love, it hurts your feelings to even imagine him or her being with someone else or paying the other person any attention.
Long story short, the idea is — how to let go any expectation in your life:
- expectations from your family;
- expectations from life and God;
- expectations from jobs, colleagues and friends.
«Give it to yourself first» — that’s the advice I’d tell myself, not knowing whether it works practically or not.
Being selfish and giving to yourself first — is the basis, foundation for any relationship we have in life.
Remember that African proverb that says: «Be afraid of a naked man offering you a shirt».
He who cannot feed himself, he who’s hungry and thirsty, will never be able to share generously.
Maybe this principle lies in the core of corruption. Unless people at power feed themselves enough to start thinking of immaterial matters, intangible values, nothing will conduce them to stop the gluttony. Human nature is insatiable.
When feeling hurt and hostile to people who ain’t generous to me, I tend to compare them with a bucket with a huge hole in it. I grudge and say to myself: «better alone than with a stingy person, they’re like buckets with holes, no matter how much you pour in, it leaks and never fills up». I know that’s a selfish and arrogant way of thinking about another person. Someone not being generous enough for you is not his or her problem — it’s my problem. My expectation of them being the way I want or demand. Waste of energy to expect anything, even a «thank you» from somebody.
Do your thing, thank yourself, treat yourself, give to yourself first and in abundance. Then share. And if you do share, share it from abundance, not scarcity. Share when your own bucket is full of water and you need no access.
I feel like the underlying truth behind my expectations and demands from other people is that I am not generous to myself.
