I like Me.

After doing an activity yesterday in one of my classes I've come to realize that I really like me above everything else.  Well, maybe not" like me" so much but I realized that I take good care of me.  One of the messages throughout the semester has been to "take care of yourself."  You can't take care of other people if you aren't taking care of yourself.  We need to be "filling our buckets" with stuff that replenishes us and makes us a stable and focused person when life or our jobs are too stressed and chaotic.  This book called "The Book of Questions" by Gregory Stock is what made me realize the fact that I take good care of me.  The book is full of extremely thought provoking questions.  Some are ridiculous and make for a good laugh,  but others are very real and provide great ethical dilemmas.  One questions we did in class was something like this: "If you were in a relationship with someone and they said they'd commit suicide if you didn't marry them, but you knew you would never be happy being with them would you marry them or not?"  

Umm I had no problem saying no I would not marry them.  I don't mean to make my answer sound that easy because it certainly would not.  From either decision you will experience a depressing life.  Each one would cause a certain amount of pain.  But, ultimately which one do you feel you have the most success overcoming and moving on from?  If you married them your life would be a depression.  You'd be filled with so much anger and resentment and you would never be happy.  If you didn't marry him you'd have the horrifying experience dealing with their suicide, guilt that it was your fault.  Either choice brings up feelings of guilt, anger, and depression.  But what one could you heal from?  What one would take care of you?  Saying no.  If they committed suicide because you did not mary them that is their messed up problem not yours.  No matter how guilty I felt I don't think I could ever truly think, "this was my fault" and each day that feeling of guilt would decrease until it became a seriously tragic event that happened in my life but not necessarily too me and certainly not because of me.   It is not selfish to act on your feelings if keeping them inside damages you.  A person cannot help what they feel.  No one can ever look down on you or make you feel inferior because of your feelings.  Keeping yourself complete inside comes before completing the insides of others.  I am not however, saying you can't be selfish with your feelings.

So, from this, I decided that I take good care of me because I will absolutely not live my life with any lingering feelings of hurt, guilt, jealousy, depression, anger, or resentment from any person.  I will confront them head on and do what needs to be done to keep me whole.