I am a big advocate for a person to be the main character in their own life. It's incredibly important to not treat your life like a spectator sport. I mean, everyone needs to take a break every now and again, take a beat, and get some perspective. But a position of observation can't be allowed to last too long, or it can become a habit.
A BIG advocate of being the main character in your own life. Your... own... life.
The thing is, there are those who seem to internalize that main character energy and spew it over everyone who has the misfortune of crossing their path. You've come across people like this, you've probably gone to school with them, worked with them, hell, there are probably a couple in your own friends and family circle.
It's like they want us to accept that they are the star of our lives as well as theirs, and we should somehow be content to play a supporting role in our own lives to accommodate their needs. Their plans, appointments, needs and wants, should be prioritized over our own. It doesn't seem to at all occur to them that we have own stuff going on.
Beware of people like this. If you are an empathetic, compassionate person who is a natural nurturer, it's easy to allow yourself to start feeling like they are right. It can be gradual, a favour that you have to shuffle stuff to accommodate, but you do it. Setting aside something you wanted to do so they can get to their thing. Before you know it, you are changing appointments, giving up plans, all to cover their shift. They'll even get pissy if you have the audacity to say no.
You can have twenty people in a room, the same room, all sitting in the same kind of chairs, for the same amount of time, but afterward, when chatting, it will sound like they were the only one that was hot/cold, the only one who found the chair uncomfortable, the only one who was in there the entirety of the time.
Don't shrink yourself to accommodate the inflated ego of someone else. You can be kind, you can be patient, you can give grace, but never allow yourself to be swallowed up.
You and/or your family's activity/haircut/ doctor appointment/ movie night is more important to you than whatever their plans may be. That doesn't make you selfish, it makes you the star of your own life, as you should, and deserve to be. No guilt allowed.
This doesn't mean you can't ever do a favour, or help out. It just means you don't tie yourself up in knots trying to meet the needs and expectations of people who tend to treat you like a personal assistant. People who can't seem to peek over the edge of their own ego to see that each of us deserves to be the star of our own lives.
Just because they like to believe that they and their lives are more important than those around them doesn't make them right. Feeding that delusion doesn't help them in the long run. At some point reality has to come into play.
Like I said. Everyone is important. Everyone is precious. Everyone is deserving of feeling cherished. But, no one person over another.
Be your own main character. Stand in the light. Bathe in its luster. Shine brilliantly. Take up space. Be as dazzling as you wish to be. Just leave room for others to do the same.
Remember, you're not the only one with a numb butt from a bad chair.
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