Many of the people that I am attracted to are people who know how to say No. You see, I don’t.
My biggest issue in life is wanting to be loved. Wanting to be wanted. I don’t know where this came from – certainly not my childhood as I was both loved and wanted. I was, it seems, simply born this way. I am therefore, a giver. I give and I give and I give. I avoid conflict whenever possible and I keep on giving and saying yes until I am simply taken for granted and abused. Someone in my past once told me that I don’t love myself. I’m not sure about that but certainly, I have a deep seated sense of insecurity. The funny thing is however, that I have a healthy dose of confidence! I enjoy a challenge, new things and achieving the ‘impossible’. Perhaps, these traits are two side of the same coin?
My constant struggle is how to balance what others want of me with what I need for myself. How do you balance selfishness and being a good person?
All things in life need to be balanced but balance is not static. Balance moves around depending on the situation and circumstances. It is like trying to hit a moving target.
In the end, I feel manipulated and abused. The answer, I am told is just to say No. Isn’t that being selfish?
I find myself going places and doing things I don’t want to just to keep people around me happy. My perception of their happy though, perhaps not theirs. Perhaps they’d be happier if I didn’t do these things?
I find I cannot explain this dilemma. Perhaps because everything is relative?
However, when I look at people I admire, I find it is because they say No. They know their own mind and they are comfortable following through with actions that I actually deem to be selfish on their part. The funny thing is, these people have charisma. People like them for saying No. I can’t quite get my head around that and yet I like them too. For the same reason.
So, I am going to try to start saying No more often. I will try to follow my heart in this and say No when I feel I need to. It’s going to be difficult but I simply need to learn how to say No and feel not guilty about it.