"You have to be your
own best friend, advocate, and manager because others will merely run you
without consideration... Do yourself a favor, and be selfish."
Why You Should Look Out for
Your Own Interests
Purposeful Selfishness Is
Important
If someone were to ever ask why you should always look out for
your own interests the answer would be simple: because in the end all you have
is a duty to yourself. However, that does not create enough material to
constitute a complete blog post.
So, I'm going to give three reasons why it is important to look
out for your own interests.
1. People Create
Expectations Based on Your Generosity (Some of Which Are Unreasonable)
I'll preface this concisely: There is nothing wrong with being
generous. However, there are times when being generous makes you a target.
Generosity is a trait that is in short supply. Even in being in short supply,
many people take advantage of generosity in a way where either a generous
person gets sick of giving or they become selective in who they give to.
From personal experience, there have been many times where I keep
giving and giving. At some point, my giving to other people created the
expectation that I was always going to be generous. When I ceased to be as
generous or conditions changed in a way where I couldn't be generous, others
would get upset. In essence, my generosity created spoilage. Now that I
recognize the spoilage, I choose not to entertain certain responses when I
flatly say "no" to helping or assisting in some way.
More striking is when people know that you have nothing to offer
or your stock of resources (tangible or intangible) is low, but still have an
expectation that you must assist. It is one thing to ask for
my assistance, rather than anticipate that I am going to
render it as a matter of course all the time. When people assume that there is
a duty where there is none, that's when lines must be drawn.
The solution to this problem is stop being as generous and stop
taking on things as a matter of a duty. In the law, the concept of duty only
attached when one consents to it either actively or passively. When you say
you're going to do it actively, then you have actively accepted the duty. By
rendering without even saying something in the negative, you have passively
accepted the duty. Even placing yourself in situations where you have certain
responsibilities to render aid, it is passively assenting to perform based
on a duty. In saying all the former, you have no duty to assist anyone.
When you act without a duty to assist anyone, you don't need to be
generous. When you are not generous to people all the time as a matter of
habit, there is no expectation that can reasonably arise to render assistance
or aid someone.
2. People Are
Ungrateful Towards Your Efforts
It is a fact of life that we are going to get screw over by
someone at some point. It's also a fact of life that there are going to
be other who complain about how you have performed a task for them. Both are blatant
demonstrations of how someone has failed to take consideration in your efforts
of providing assistance.
This point is important because it is aligned with the first
point. People not only have expectations of whether the assistance is going to
be rendered; they have expectations about the way how the assistance is
rendered. Hence, beggars end up being choosers. The simple fact of the
matter is, no matter how much or in what way you provide continual assistance
to others in a kind of there are some friends or associates that will
complain.
There are even some people that may not complain, but will attempt
to undercut you by falsely taking credit for saving themselves. These people
are de facto ungrateful.
Undercutting someone's charitable
efforts is a demonstration of how contributions are "not good enough"
to serve the aims of what someone wants. The screw-over is when people claim
that you've done nothing for them, you have. What the reality is: they've taken
all your work and best efforts and then try to pass them off as their
own.
At this point, the solution to the problem is once again either
not rendering aid as a duty or only rendering aid in a way that makes it
undercut-proof. Undercut-proof assistance is essentially providing the tools
for someone to help themselves but not performing the favor in a way that
leaves you on the hook.
3. You End Up Burning Out
While this appears as a symptom of assisting other people for long
periods of time. Burning out is common in contemporary society where people are
tasked to wear many hats at one time. However, for the generous empath, the risk is higher for burnout. When
you feel like there is a duty to assist people all the time, at that moment you
have set yourself up to be drained and to be used.
There is a saying that uses the expression of "pouring into
someone." This metaphor is accurate because when you render assistance and
look out for the interests of others you are "pouring yourself into
someone else." However there comes a point where the well, reservoir, or
glass runs dry from having to pour into others without reciprocation or
recharge. The drain of resources such as time, energy, morale, and even money
leaves a person feeling like they cannot offer anything else.
Here, the scarcity of resources creates a situation where someone
is unable to provide assistance. The inability to assist is not because of
willful want to not help; the inability to assist comes from there being no
resources to assist with. Currently, the attitude I have adopted is "if
I'm no good to myself, how am I good to anyone else." The rhetorical
question (note the period rather than the question mark at the end)
demonstrates a point. How can you pour into someone else if there is nothing
left in the glass?
I've learned that
despite best efforts, you cannot pour into someone else if you have nothing
left. It's the rule of exhaustion. Once something is gone from a space, it is
gone from the space. Hence, the solution to this problem is that when you have
nothing left to give, stop giving. If you feel the need to continue assisting
or helping others, recharge yourself. However, even when you recharge yourself,
make sure that you budget yourself and resources more efficiently.
Budgeting yourself and your resources more efficiently means not
overextending yourself. Being more efficient for yourself means saying
"No." It also means that some people are going to be upset with you
because you are not readily available all the time. However, it's okay. If
people get upset because you say "No," they do not care about you or
your well-being.
In Conclusion
If people get upset because
you withdraw from providing full assistance all the time or because you say
"no," it's because they do not care about you. Further, people feel
as though you should be a machine because you've created an expectation. Rather
than continuing to spoil others, spoil yourself with the ability to recharge
and re-invigorate yourself.
When you look out for
yourself, you'll be both better to others and better to yourself. In the end,
it is a net win for everyone.
ifw (c) 2017
