Knowing oneself completely is a journey which can possibly take a lifetime, and I just moved on to the next level of that journey.
Well, I just patted myself on the back for being able to find solace. I am not talking about a vacant and abandoned corner where no one walks by. I am talking about the current state of my mind, and surprisingly there are no flames burning up there, and I am liking the strange feeling of not being at war with myself.
Let me tell you about how I came to this point. I have always believed that the friends I make or have are my biggest asset in life and I have always gloated about having a big friend circle. I am not saying that I was restless because of socialisation, I have always loved my friends and tried to be fair with them, and this spirit has been reciprocated in most cases.
However, all through my life, I have made one mistake, and that is I have always blurred the line between selflessness and loving oneself. Owing to the added pressure of giving my best to friends and being by their side when they were stuck in some mess, I compromised on my personal time. As a result, I had grown too sour and jaded to find happiness in small things.
I had a moment of epiphany when a very dear friend of mine (I bear no malice against him nor will I ever) complained to me about being emotionally unavailable to him during a personal turmoil. I was actually taken by surprise when he complained to me because deep down I was assured that I did whatever I could have to make him hold on to his sanity. A complaint about not being by his side was possibly the last thing that I expected from him. Anyway, to me I was right, and he would have been right from his perspective because differences are born only when people start seeing things differently.
I decided to not go out for several days and just do things which I used to love once, read, play video games and listen to music. Much to my surprise, I stopped feeling irritable, I curbed a lot of my stress, and most importantly I regained my composure and focused at work.
I figured out after churning the recent developments around my social life that you can’t give someone your 100% unless you do justice to yourself. People will always complain about your unavailability; physical and emotional to the point that you’d start screaming from inside.
I realised that selflessness doesn’t mean that you have to oppress the voice that comes from within because the inner self may too need your attention sometimes. There isn’t any contradiction in doing justice to the human you encounter and to yourself. In fact, justice cannot be done to others if it’s not done to oneself.
Now, there is a very thin line of demarcation between loving oneself and being selfish or self-obsessed. It’s okay to treat yourself right, but it’s not fair to prioritise oneself at the cost of others.
To sum up, don’t stop loving yourself in the course of loving people around you.