Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
I very much took that to heart with no provisions, and I lived with this as my motto for a long time.
I thought it was a way to show love.
I thought keeping the people around me comfortable and happy was most important. I explicitly remember thinking, I don’t want this person to blame me for their unhappiness at the end of their life.
That would have been awful.
The problem was, I was self sacrificing in order to do it. I was sending the message to myself that I’m not important and neither was my happiness.
Its impossible to sacrifice just a little bit.
It’s either ok to self sacrifice or it isn’t.
Once you allow it in one scenario, you can’t make the distinction as to when it’s ok, and when it’s not ok. So it takes over your life.
That’s not love. That’s slavery.
You are only capable of loving someone as much as you love yourself, and I wasn’t loving anybody by self sacrificing.
I still believe we should do unto others, as we would have others do unto us. But now I know I belong in that category too.
I treat myself the way I treat others, and I treat myself the way I want others to treat me too.
“Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others will treat you.” ― Steve Maraboli