Doing it for Myself

 

Doing something for yourself is considered being selfish. Today I am looking at another dimension of this word. A big part of this journey to life is to write about yourself or to write yourself out - basically focus on yourself to become an effective living human being. Some may see this as being selfish saying " you must help others to make this world a better place, so focusing on yourself is being selfish!!!". The question here is: how does one / can one assist others when you can’t even /haven’t assisted yourself? You start with yourself to be effective and to be able to support another.

We’re all like in a big steaming pile of quicksand - before you can pull others out, you have to first get yourself out. Like what they tell you in the airplane safety video "In the unlikely event when there is trouble with the plane, first secure your own oxygen mask before helping others". It is not being selfish - you simply can’t help others when you are suffocating.

Within this all, I do I look at my starting point for example working around the farm and watering trees or planting trees. I am doing it for the trees - to feed the trees and grow more. Within this I am doing it for myself as well, support and assist myself to be here in the moment.

What brought this point up was with doing a particular task that you do not like or have no issue with like cleaning for example. It does not bother me when a house is not sparkling clean - I have no issue with a house that is not exactly clean, but my partner does. So when I cleaned I did not do it for myself, but I did it for her because it makes her happy. The problem with this is: I create an expectation within myself of how the other person will react to me cleaning and being happy and when a event occurs that does not meet my expectations I get angry. Within this I realized that Although I was cleaning "for the other person" from a selfless point it was not in fact unconditional. I was cleaning "for her" to be happy and when she is happy I am satisfied - but then the reason I cleaned was for me to be happy, which was depended from another persons actions.

I am not saying that you should NOT do  something for another person - simply look at the starting point. Now I feed two birds with one big piece of bread ( The 2 birds, 1 stone thing is not cool): I clean to assist and support myself to be active and working/aligning with the physical again after a long time being unable to due to my condition AND it satisfies my partner. Now I actually enjoy having a clean house.