ARE YOU SELFISH OR SANE?
Is it selfish or sane to ever consider yourself ahead of your family?
(This is no 7 in our series on SELF.)
The last time we tried to define selfishness.
Today, we’ll look at what some people say is selfish behavior in
the family.
Is your behavior in your family selfish or sane?
Are you preserving your self or are you just a bad person!? (I’m kidding!)
You do need self-preservation, you know!
Faye Weldon, a British author wrote:
“Young women, especially have something invested in being nice people,and it’s only when you have children that you realize you’re not a nice person at all, but generally a selfish bully.”
Ooops!
I’m sure many women might agree with that statement (many men too!) but more would not!
People have difficult time trying to determine if their behavior is selfish or not when dealing with family.
How much concentration on you and your needs and wants is appropriate when you have a spouse and children?
Clearly, it isn’t good to sacrifice yourself totally for the family but how far should you go?
Is it wise to put all your energy into your family and leave nothing for you?
Is that selfish?
(Somewhat off the point, but for your amusement, I have to report that Ms. Weldon, when an advertising copywriter, once wrote, “Vodka gets you drunker quicker.”
She said in a Guardian interview, “It just seemed … to be obvious that people who wanted to get drunk fast, needed to know this.”
Which I thought was pretty funny.
Her bosses didn’t use the comment.
Her husband, Ron Weldon, left her for his astrological therapist who had told him that the couple’s astrological signs were incompatible.
Apparently, they were both a little off-the-wall.)
In any case, her opinions on selfishness in the family are supported by others.
The French actress, Emmanuelle Beart, brings up a different aspect. She doesn’t talk about bullying but she references selfishness and echoes a lot of women:
“I just decided that I would not put my professional life on hold to raise children.
I know that sounds selfish to a lot of people and I don’t know if what I’m doing is the right thing. But that’s the way I’m doing it.”
Is Ms Beart selfish?
She doesn’t have children but was it selfish of her to decide not to?
Would she be a famous actress is she had children?
Would she still be that beautiful?
These are serious considerations for many women.
But Angelina Jolie and other successful actresses DO have children.
But some who do, neglect them.
Others neglect their careers for years.
These comments indicate a real problem many people have in the tug-of-war between themselves and their children.
This is true of artists–who predictably–are more forthcoming about solutions for the problem.
Mikhail Baryshnikov said:
“People of art should never get married and have children, because it’s a selfish experience.”
But Greg LeMond, a race track driver, also said,
“Racing is a very selfish, self-centred, self-glorifying thing.
My wife’s life for 14 years was centered around me.
It was all about me. It was all for my ego.”
Parents, too,often have this problem.
I think, on some level, all parents do.
How they deal with it varies, of course, but all must wrestle with the implications for their lives and for their children’s lives.
On the biggest level, it has enormous impact on families:
whether they break up, stay together “for the sake of the children,” or work it out in compromise and love and stay together knowing that some of what they –the parents–wanted in life will never be achieved.
- Other things,however, might satisfactorily replace them.
- Think of all the well-educated immigrants who move to countries so their children can have a better life. They work menial jobs to give their kids a chance.
- In some cases, what people thought they wanted, isn’t what they wanted at all.
- But it keeps people up in the middle of the night.
- Nobody said it was easy.
I’m with you in this complicated subject of YOU, Your SELF. You are worth the time, aren’t you.
Spend a little time with yourself.
If you are not a member, join us. Just put your John or Joanna Henry in the box above and I’ll start sending you good things
You can begin by getting my eBook,
FOUR QUESTIONS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
It’s FREE here and will be on Amazon soon for around $3.
You can also get a FREE consultation with me on any problem that might be driving you nuts.
If you have a problem with time management, personal goals, choosing a career path, the inability to choose a life partner (maybe you consistently date the wrong people) or any other troublesome area, you can help solve it with self-knowledge and I can teach you how to do that.
For a 20 minute–FREE— introduction, please email me at daleyfank0@gmail.com or call me 647-205-5059.
I’ll be with you.
Frank
Next:
The Self Part 8: Singer Sarah Slean knows who she is
Previous:
The Self Part 1: Do You Find Yourself or Create it?
The Self Part 2: Searching for yourself? Flying blind?
The Self Part 3: Be Yourself, Everybody else is taken.
The Self Part 4: Self-discovery without Viagra.
The Self Part 5: Selfish vs Selfless (in women)
The Self Part 6: SELFISHNESS. Always wrong? Or can it be a form of self-preservation?
Frank Daley
daleyfrank0@gmail.com
