Living for Yourself
In this world we are taught to put ourselves aside in order to serve others. More often than not, we are encouraged to be entirely selfless whenever possible, which is ultimately unsustainable and sets us up for failure. This failure to please everyone else in our lives opens the door to shame, guilt, and disappointment, which can upset the apple cart of our existence if we allow it. It is possible to live your life for yourself while remaining humble, helpful, and loving to those around you. We aren’t taught that we must fill our cups first before we begin doling out our energy to everyone else, but that’s the only way to be a sustainable force of love in this world. If you ensure that you’re living a life that feels good to you, you’ll have the energy to be generous to others in a way that prevents you from becoming depleted in the process. If you give feely to yourself first, you’ll have an abundance of overflow for your loved ones. If your energy is in short supply because you’re constantly depleted from serving others first, you won’t be able to help the ones you love when they need it most.
This concept might sound selfish initially, but we must learn to put on our oxygen mask first, or we won’t be here to help the person beside us. You are here and living in this moment for a purpose, and if you allow the needs and desires of others to overwhelm you, you won’t be able to fulfill it. We each came here to do something important, and we all carry innate wisdom and information that we need for our specific life journey. When you choose to live for yourself, you are honoring the purpose that you set out to fulfill in this lifetime. Part of your purpose could certainly be to support and love the people around you, but not to your own detriment. If you allow yourself to be pulled off of your path to help someone else, you won’t be able to complete the task that you hoped to achieve.
Sometimes when we are feeling tempted to live for others, it comes from a lack of confidence in trusting our own path and direction in life. If we’re feeling unsure about the next steps on our journey, we might feel tempted to follow external guidance from other people who we perceive to be wiser or smarter than we are in that moment. The issue with this is that no one knows you as well as you know yourself, and no one can make decisions for you that are better than the ones you could make for yourself. People sometimes think that they know what’s best for us, but in reality, they only know what they believe is best for us, and those are two very different things. As you begin to trust yourself more and hear the call of your heart above the noise of the world, you’ll be able to determine what is truly right for you despite outside opinions to the contrary.
Once you realize that everyone is filtering life through their specific lens of experience, you will be able to understand why no one else can live your life for you. Their lens was crafted specifically for them, and their perspective doesn’t apply to your life in the same way. You aren’t bound to live life by someone else’s rules, and what works for others might not work well for you. One of the most beautiful aspects of life is that we are all totally different people. No one has ever lived your life before, and you’re the only one equipped to get it right. The trick is to see and understand that there is no one size fits all approach to life. We are all different, thus we all need to experience life differently. Sameness is an illusion, and attempting to fit in with the crowd is one of the many pitfalls that we encounter on the path back to ourselves.
If you can begin to trust yourself more every day, while also loving yourself more every day, you’ll begin to grasp why all of these concepts are so important. You weren’t placed here to serve others or to live a life based on someone else’s script. You are the author of your own story, and you make the decisions that determine the trajectory of your life. Living for others will ultimately suck the life out of your existence, and it leads to pain, disappointment, and feeling stuck. When you can feel in your heart that you’re meant to be doing something, whatever that something might be, you can trust that your path is meant to curve in that direction. Life will find a way to move you along despite your best efforts to remain stuck by following guidance that isn’t meant for you. Choosing to be misled can only cause delays and slow you down, it can’t stop you from living out your destiny. For best results, follow your inner guidance and hang on for the ride. You’ll end up exactly where you’re meant to be.