(no subject)
It's really difficult to put into words how I'm feeling right now, what it is I want to express. I'm thinking. I've got this hollow, depressed feeling that's chewing at my guts, somewhere deep and down, and then there's this awesome, lighthearted, freefalling motion going on somewhere higher. Dread mixed with excitement.
It's this really, really insane, weird paradox where, if you do what you do because you want to do it, because you enjoy the process, because you believe in deciding for yourself what you want to do, because you believe in a certain amount of healthy selfishness, you're actually... less of an emotional vampire, less unhappy, not at all guilt-ridden.
You're... free.
Free. We don't understand (at least, I don't understand) what that word really feels like. On a day-to-day basis, I don't feel remotely free. I have obligations -- school, work, laundry, cleaning, boyfriend, and even my free time feels like an obligation sometimes. I have to find something relaxing and rejuvenation to do. If I don't, I'll feel terrible. I have to find something my boyfriend and I both enjoy doing, and to some degree I always feel like I'm forcing us to do or enjoy something together, when really I think he'd be just as happy, if not happier, playing on the computer. (And so would I!) But no, we need to spend time together. We need to play together, be a couple. I need to get over that knee-jerk behavior.
In a way, you can't be happy if you're always thinking of what others want or need. You have to put yourself first. It's a lesson I've had so much difficulty learning. I once knew what it meant to put yourself first, and I knew that it was healthy and essential, that it didn't at all make you a bad person, that it freed you, lit you up with joy and fervor, made life worth living. But I get this depressed feeling, too, with regard to it--always after a while--that says that this is a hollow, self-serving way to live. How can being selfish make you happy? That's... selfish! That's not the way they taught us, not the way life is truly meant to be lived. Eventually, putting myself first, putting my needs and wants first, always loses its luster.
The key to helping yourself and being happiest is often framed in terms of not depending on others to make you happy--not acting as if they owe you anything, or as if they can provide things for you that you can't provide for yourself. But jumping straight to this way of conceptualizing it, rather than helping people feel invigorated and empowered, frequently frightens them and gives them a gnawing sense of anxiety. "How do I stop depending on other people? How do I stop being a needy individual? What does that manifest itself as?" They can't even imagine, and they feel rather insufficient and diminished.
I know because, while on some level I've always known this was something I wanted--to depend on others less--I've hardly ever felt invigorated by trying to distance myself emotionally, by trying to be more self-sufficient. Because that's not how it needs to be framed for me. People who put it that way are missing an important first step that precedes any kind of self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is an inevitable by-product of this first step, and while self-sufficiency is a wonderful and empowering state of mind, self-sufficiency is not the goal, should and must not be the goal.
The goal, or at the very least how it needs to be framed first, is to put yourself first. There is a healthy selfishness that lies in starting with your needs, your wants, your self. From a self-centered perspective, you can act in productive, effective, joyful (seriously--joyful), motivated, invigorated way, without even trying! No self-help or life coach can even begin to teach you how to behave in social situations or in any life situation the way that a healthy self-centeredness can. This is what lights people up. It's the way people were meant to function--beautifully, from themselves.
Life is a gift, but it's not a gift if you can't see it as a gift meant to be yours.
By constantly putting other people's thoughts and feelings first, people think they'll be more successful at getting them to be happy, getting those people to want to continue engaging with them, getting and keeping friends and partners and companions and acquaintances. It's not true, but that's actually a pretty rational, we would think, way to approach it. If you want to please people, put them first.
But actually, and paradoxically! You please other people more by putting yourself first. How is this possible? The ways are too myriad and numerous to list every one, but a few of the main ones are somewhat intuitive. First, people want to be around other people that are invigorated and have come alive. They want to be around people who aren't afraid to be selfish, in that they put their views and thoughts out there--the things that light them up--without qualification or hesitation. This is what I want--this is what I'll do. That's how selfish people think, and other people benefit from this lack of self-consciousness.
It's really kind of telling that we don't have concept of this kind of selfishness, which really isn't selfish. Our concepts of self-centered behavior are limited to words with negative connotations, and that, especially in a culture that proclaims individualism and capitalism, is extremely, extremely telling. Try and think of a positive word that encapsulates what I'm talking about, without using qualifiers like "healthy" selfishness or "positive" self-centeredness. You can't! If there is such a word, it's long fallen into disuse.