If You Don't Take Care of Yourself, Nobody Will
It’s clear that people like to interact with others. We want others to love us, to take care of us and to share part of their time with us. However, it’s good for us to keep in mind that this isn’t a fundamental need. What is a necessity is for us to take care of, love and learn to be happy for and by ourselves.
Nobody is really indispensable to our ability to be happy or to feel fulfilled, though we may often times think so. What others give us, in fact, is a voluntary act, which is even more enriching if it is unexpected. Those who want to be around, will be around and they will take care of us without us needing to ask them.
Existence doesn’t allow for substitutes
We are all unique and special. Therefore, we each have different emotions, experiences and ways of interpreting life. Thus, what we are and what we feel can only be regulated by ourselves. If we want to be taken care of, for example, first we need to learn how to take care of ourselves.
Bucay said that nobody can grow for us, and he wasn’t wrong. No one, no matter how much they may love us, will ever be able to step into our shoes. Our biggest expectations and challenges are best placed in one direction: inward.
In this sense, a great deal of opportunities lay before us that we may be able to take advantage of, as well as a great deal of decisions left to be made. Taking care of ourselves means that we have to be aware of what can happen to us at any moment. Maintaining our inner balance depends only on us.
The importance of taking care of ourselves so we may then take care of others
Even when we lose this inner balance and then have to struggle against certain adversities, we will have many people on our side. However, we shouldn’t count on this, because it might not always be the case. Someone we thought would be there for us will be missing. And surely someone we weren’t expecting will surprise us. So, we can’t calculate the strength that the people who accompany us can provide. But, we can calculate our own strength.
Sometimes, for example, we have to separate from someone, and we think that we won’t be able to go on. We can’t conceive the idea that we must first be there for ourselves, and then for other people. This makes us feel a sort of dependency. However, it’s only a mirage. We’ll find a way out and will never not be there for ourselves.
Because essentially, the only one who has to be with you, is you. Everything else arrives on its own in the form of a cure, in the form of a blanket, in distances that were never there.
Our loved ones enrich our life, but we live for ourselves
When we take care of and love ourselves, it seems that for no reason at all others want to do the same. It gives us the feeling that everything is much easier. The truth is that our loved ones enhance our life. But in the end, we’re alone. Alone to do what we want with what life gives us.
Love, friendship and family give us the warmth we sometimes need, and they support us through any circumstance. However, if there is no inner warmth, you’ll probably continue to feel cold inside. It’s useful to understand that the time given to us is ours and ours alone. As well as the decision on how we will use it.
If you don’t take care of yourself, nobody will. We each have the obligation of cultivating our inner “me” and making it grow. We must fulfill our dreams and overcome our defeats. We must seek the things that make us happy and then decide to share our happiness with someone who proves that they want that privilege.