Selfish Solitude

Yesterday's message at church was about selfishness. I won't get into the actual message itself, but I will tell you what it made me think about.

First, I started thinking about how one person's selfish narcissism helped to drive me from a career that I worked hard for and cared about.  Of course, I kmow, ultimately, the decision not to fight to hold onto that career was mine and mine alone.  I knew I could no longer be an effective teacher in that environment and, really, why would I want to?

I've come a long way in the past 7 months.  It's really only by the grace of God that I am even still here.  I have been blessed with a supportive family, true friends, a fantastic church family and incredible medical professionals who went above and beyond any expectations I would have had to get me through the really bad stuff.  Most of all, I had an inexplicable peace about the outcome of my situation. 

I have had nothing to rely upon but faith many times over the past 7 months.  I don't know why or how, but my family has been provided for without fail.

With that being said, I have reached a point of forgiveness.  It became a whole lot easier once I figured out what granting forgiveness does and doesn't require of me.  Also, I had to figure out that any expectations I have of other people regarding their behaviors or reactions are really unreasonable on my part.  No expectations=no disappointment=no anger.  Pretty simple, but difficult to really do while you feel like you are fighting for simple survival.

So back to selfishness.  Everyone has it to one degree or another.  As I suddenly realized where I am in my life and wonder what happened to land myself here, I started remembering those first few weeks I spent not working.  I remember how I thought to myself "Everyone else looks out for number one, so from now on, I'm doing the same!"

I knew that wasn't realistic for me to sustain forever, but I had to make a conscious decision to just take care of me.  I am still there for now, although I have tried to toss it out the window a few times.  

No matter how much we like to think that we are not selfish, we all have a little piece of ourselves that we need to preserve. It takes on different forms for all of us, but it is there.  For some people it is money, power, or time or any number of other things. 

For me, I think it is solitude. I like my time alone.  To not feel pressured to act a certain way or have to say anything to another person.  This probably comes from a lifetime of approval-seeking, and I've finally found that to be exhausting.  

Someday I may try to break out of my selfish habit of trying to be alone most of the time. For now, I just don't have it in me to fight it. I need to learn ways to make it less taxing on myself first, like learning to not care so much about what other people may think of me.  I think as I get older, I am slowly gaining an attitude of "So what?".  I just wish I could flip a switch and be there.  

I'm sure I have many other areas in which I am selfish.  This is likely just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. But I've got to stick with one battle at a time.