Do It For You

A few years ago I learned a very important lesson, I don't know how this lesson applies to anyone else, all I know is that this one concept revolutionize my life, and helped me find peace, and greater harmony in my relationships with others.

The realization was simply this, when I lived my life simply trying to meet the expectations of others, I was miserable, and resentful. Feeling like I was sacrificing huge chunks of myself to make everyone else happy at the cost of my own made it so even when I did good things, there was an unspoken weight of expectation that neither I nor the other person could live up to. My reasons and motivations for my actions shifted the responsibility of my decisions and actions to others, and off of myself, and created an expectation in my head, that by so doing I deserved to have other people make the same sacrifices for my benefit. Only, nothing was ever enough.

One day I made the decision to stop doing this, to take full responsibility for my decisions and actions, and to do them, even if they weren't fun or easy, because it was my choice to do so, regardless of how anyone else might feel about those decisions.

The result was that I was empowered within my own life, my destiny was in my hands. My limitations were mine to work with, in the way I saw fit, and my moral compass was my responsibility to myself to follow.

I'm not perfect in doing this, sometimes I still bow my moral compass to other people's expectations. I think maybe that's part of living in a society, you sometimes have to compromise a little, but when I do that now, I make that comprise on my own terms, no one owes me anything for my sacrifice, I do it regardless of what other people will reward me for it, and there fore I do not resent others for not living up to an end of the bargin I imagined on their behalf.

Something is very important about this process. I think, because for me it has allowed me to be happy, to give deeper love to others, to not put myself in positions I feel are harmful to me, but also has allowed me to meet people where they are without judging them for not meeting my expectations. My expectations have become geared for what I expect of me, not what I expect of everyone else, and my choices are what I expect of me, not what is expected by everyone else.

This small change has been very freeing for me, and though I cannot prescribe that everyone else should do the same, I am so happy that a small change in thinking has allowed me to reach a higher potential for myself, and not constrain myself to artificial limits, but to recognize what my real limits are, what they arent, and to be more patient with myself and others in their journey of becoming.