A friend of mine mails birthday cards to all of her friends and always phones on birthdays.
She told me once, that her feelings were hurt one year, because nobody remembered her birthday when it came around.
She decided that she would quit sending cards and wasn’t going to make any more birthday calls, obviously nobody valued it.
But ignoring everyone’s birthdays made her feel so awful.
After much deliberation, she went back to sending cards and making birthday phone calls… She does it now because it makes her feel good to do it. With no expectations of anything in return.
And she has happily done it ever since.
I loved that.
You see when you are doing something expecting a specific outcome, you are setting yourself up for failure and disappointment, giving away all of your power to someone else. How you feel has become hinged on their reception of it.
But if your actions are out of love, and from the heart, because it’s what feels good to you, with no other agenda… There can be no wrong. You can’t possibly feel bad or be made to feel bad.
This is why even when doing something for someone else, you need to be doing it for you.