There are many times that we are told we need to be nice. There are times when we are told that we need to share. There are even times that without us even thinking about it we will sacrifice. It is natural for us men to sacrifice our heart’s desires, our hopes, and our dreams for those in our family.
We often sacrifice way too much. We sacrifice to the point of it being detrimental to our sense of being. We start identifying ourselves as two things a family man and whatever our profession is. When in reality, we are much more.
The reason behind this is that we do not pay attention to how much we’re giving away. We become very selfless in hopes that we gain admiration for what we have given up. Instead of striving for those things we truly want. We often sacrifice the important parts of who we are and then we hear our wife say that we are not the same man we used to be. We hear our wife ask, where is her man? We are left behind many times because we just want to please those people around us we never stand and advocate for ourselves.
Because we sacrifice so much, we often turn to assorted buffers to drown out the fact that we have sacrificed too much. We returned to liquor and alcohol, food work, and other assorted addictions because we have sacrificed too much of ourselves for the sake of our family and our children.
We are often told that doing things that we want is selfish. Being selfish has such a negative connotation to it. So much so that we would rather do the opposite of what truly needs to be done for our own well-being. We hear women talk about how they need to treat themselves to something nice. They need to go on a girl’s trip. Now granted us guys aren’t like that as much, however, there are things we can do that would be considered selfish, but need to be done.
Why do you want to be selfish
The reason behind why you want to have a selfish streak is because it’s not bad for us. We stop being selfish because we’re told it hurts other people‘s feelings. What that is actually saying is that other people have a problem wishing they could be as independent as that selfish person. When you tell somebody no, they will try to manipulate you into changing your mind. This becomes a battle of wills.
Are you going to give up your plans because your dear Saintly mother wants you over at her place this holiday or are you and your sons gonna go deer hunting? Do you sacrifice a better stronger relationship with your sons so that your mother does not feel bad? You could have a great opportunity to pour into your sons your thoughts and observations, or you could hang out with grandma.
It’s not that grandma is a bad option. But if you have already made plans to do something, but you cancel them because somebody has emotionally manipulated you then you get to choose, is that a bad thing or a good thing?
Why do you wanna be selfish? For your own mental health. Yes, mental health gets thrown around way too much these days. Yet you have to stand up for yourself. If there is something that you have been wanting to do and it does not impede on the goals of your family. Then why not do it? What is it going to hurt to go camping on a weekend? If it’s hunting season, maybe it would be beneficial to save a little money on beef and bring home a deer. The opportunity for you to be out by yourself sitting on a deer stand is next to therapeutic for us men. Yet so many times we will opt out of our type of therapy and do what our wife needs us to do because we don’t want to piss her off.
Altruism is harmful
One thing many of us men do is sacrifice way too much. Altruism is not beneficial to anybody. When we are talked into being altruistic, that’s when we start cutting pieces of our soul off and giving it to people who do not care for what we’ve done or what we have severed from us.
I often wonder why we men desire to try to impress other people by removing the most important parts of who we are and trying to give that away when nobody wants it and it does nobody any good. The only person our hopes, dreams, and desires benefit is us.
Times you want to be selfish
Now there are things that we do for our family that are part of being a family. Compromises are being made on a daily basis. Do we get little Timmy braces or do we start remodeling the kitchen? Do we put the Colorado trip off till a later time so that little Susie can get her dance lessons? These aren’t the same type of sacrifices that altruists make. Our wife gives up on a lot of her dreams we give up a lot of our dreams so that we can pour ourselves into the children that we have.
This isn’t saying that kids are not good to have either. Because there is a special reward that men receive for raising their children. There is the pride and joy that comes with us spending time with our sons and daughters.
But even then, it is good to show our sons and daughters that you need to have your priorities in line. The priorities that you need are as follows.
- God
- You
- Immediate Family
- Extended family
- Friends
- Neighbors
- Community
As you see, you have to put on your mask first. If you are completely spent emotionally and physically, how are you supposed to help your children have a better life? It is tough and this is why you have to take care of yourself. You have to set those healthy boundaries.
When you need time alone
We men need our time in our cave. This is the time when we withdraw so we can think things through. So that we can make our plans and strategize. This gives us the ability to mentally reset. There’s a reason why Superman had his fortress of solitude. And you need to have a place you can go to be alone.
When you set a boundary
Many times our family friends neighbors will keep asking from us. And as men, we love to help, because as mentioned before, we want to know that we are good enough. If we are not being intentional with our time in our energy, we can become overextended. This is where frustration and irritation come into play because we have lost control of our schedule. We want that time back but yet we can’t because we’ve made a promise. This is where we have to set boundaries. Especially, when we have an overly doting mother or an uncle who doesn’t respect one’s boundaries.
You have to make a plan and stick to it. If there is something that you don’t care to talk about you selfishly announce that you are going to talk about it. And if it’s brought up again, we will say sorry that we couldn’t stay and we leave. Or whatever the consequence is that you choose. But you stick to the consequence if the boundary is broken.
Do the thing you love
Some men love to fish. Some men love just being outdoors. They could sit outside and go plinking with the BB gun or launch countless numbers of arrows at a target. Some men love to do model ships. Other men like to paint or sculpt or do metalworking. We have to have a hobby.
Yes, the hobby is one of the first things we sacrifice because we don’t see the importance of it.
The importance of a hobby is allowing your brain to shift into a different gear. It allows us to idle a bit as mindlessly sand, a piece of wood. It allows us to focus on something better as we carve a face into a stick.
Whatever it is, you like to do as a hobby reclaim that. Something you like to do that you gave up because you didn’t think you had time to start doing it again. It’s going to be messy and ugly and uncomfortable, but you will fall back into the rhythm of that soul-nurturing activity.
Spending time with wife and/or kids
There are times when work or friends will want to draw us away from our wives and kids. If you have a lot of time with your friends, then you wanna make special time for your wife and kids.
Now I get that I am somebody who tells you to go find a group of friends that you meet with every week. That is a couple of hours a week. Even though these friends are life-saving to you, you still have a responsibility to your family. So how can you spend time with them in a quality way? That is the tough question it’s answerable, but you have to do some thought and trial and error to find that solution. Maybe you and the family go camping once a month. And then once also once a month you do something with the wife and once a month, you do something with the kids. That leads to one weekend that you can spend it by yourself or with your friends.
Going for your dream
The second thing we sacrifice the most is our dream. What did you want to do? What topic would you not shut up about? If you didn’t worry about the world and you had unlimited free time what would you be doing? What’s that one thing that you yearn to do?
This is that soul pillar that I talk about. Have a dream is it a business? Is it an activity? What is it that feeds your soul? What is that one thing that means the world to you and to nobody else? Fight for that dream every open second you have to do something to forward yourself to your goal. You can make getting to that goal almost like a game as you try to find new ways to get closer to what you want done.
Say No.
The most selfish word in the English dictionary is the word no. It’s the first word we learn as little kids. And yet because adults don’t like being told no we start dropping that word. We almost forget the meaning of that word. Yet the word no is us expressing our will. No, I do not want to go out of town today no that doesn’t sound like fun. No, I wanna stay home and mow the lawn. Anytime somebody asks something that you don’t wanna do or is not an instant hell yes then we should be saying no. That’s an interesting sentence for me to say because I don’t like to should on people. Yet this is one time we should be saying no more frequently.
You help those around you be more resilient
What if you saying no benefited the person asking? What if instead of doing something for your son, you let your son figure it out? Would that benefit your son or would that be a hindrance to him? Many times sadly we rush in to help people out when we need to let them struggle. We are doing more harm when we do something for our wife, our daughters, and for our sons instead of letting them sit there and figure the solution out themselves.
Why do we do this? Well again because of how we feel. We feel bad that they are struggling with something that we could do in a very little amount of time. Yet if we sit through the discomfort that they are experiencing, we will find that we have made our family and friends a lot stronger by being a little more selfish.
We sacrifice parts of ourselves for the answer to the biggest question we men ask ourselves. This is the question we ask our dads when we are young. We ask our wives when we marry and that question is,
“Am I good enough?”
Hoping that other people will answer that question instead of us. Yet the only person who can truly answer that question is us. When we give that power to other people, they will hamstring us so that we do what they want us to do. You have to figure out how to say no in the best way possible.
