A friend told me off the other day: "your feelings are your own business." I'm not going to go too deep into the details of the situation around it, but the point she made was very interesting. People can do whatever they want to with their feelings - I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm in love, I hate - and they can communicate to others such, but they have no right to expect something out of others because of it.
I had a really hard time with this at first: wait, you don't really care about my feelings? Why aren't you as concerned about this as I am? I finally figured it out - she is not responsible for my feelings. If she actively did something to make me upset, such as burn down my house or something, then she would be responsible and my feelings are of concern to her. But if she is just there hanging out and minding her own business, I can feel whatever I want but she has no obligation to it.
This is a very important concept to me as it gets at the depth of a problem I have - I take other people's feelings personally. If someone is sad, I make it my responsibilty to make them happy. If someone mad, I get defensive. What if I could just think "those feelings are that person's business and I'm going to isolate myself from them." It's not as cold as it sounds actually - you can still talk with the other person and try to cheer them up, but once you make it your responsibility the relationship changes.
I think this applies only to friendship. A boyfriend should feel it is his responsibility to make his girlfriend happy when she is sad as a parent should feel it is their responsibility to when their child is. These relationships involve promises of responsibility for each other and sharing of everything, including emotions. But friendships don't.
This brings up an interesting concept of "bros before hos" - code for friends before girlfriends. This is misleading. Are your friends going to someday bear your children, share a bank account, sleep in the same bed, take care of your parents when they are sick while you are on a business trip, etc etc? No. Their going to have husbands and wives themselves. I admit there are some times that this concept rings true - 2 guys shouldn't fight over a girl. I see this as the only real situation that bros are closer to you than a "ho", because once that attachment is in place the relationship with the "ho" is much closer than between the bros - there are promises and responsibilities.
"Your feelings are your own business" goes very far, but it is hard to write out a good example. You can't expect other people to act a certain way just because your feelings want them to. They have feelings too, which just might have nothing to do with you. Your feelings are YOUR responsibility, so if you don't like them change them, but at least stop expecting the world to care.
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4 comments:
This is SO TRUE. I've been learning the same thing throughout the course of my interactions with my friends. I guess if your like me, which it sounds like you are, then you do care a lot about how other people feel, and you make it a point to try and make them feel better, but in return, you have certain expectations from them to feel the same way, at least from a friendship standpoint. Thing is, it's like your friend said, your feelings are you own business, and it's up to them whether they want to go the extra mile to care about your feelings or not. I guess for yourself you have to figure out what your going to tolerate or not tolerate. But when you do find that person that does care to the extent that you like or more, then you really need to hang onto them, because it's a lot rarer than I had imagined it to be. Good luck!
Good comment :)
People who think so can never have real friends. You think you'll be good to your girlfriend, but you can't even be good enough to your friends. It's harsh to say that, but sometimes selfish people do find excuses for themselves. Actually I am no better than you, being selfish is just a human nature. If finding an excuse can make yourself feel easier and not guilty to be selfish, you should definitely do it. Changing ourselves is the hardest thing in the world. I still don't know if we should CHANGE ourselves. But maybe grow up a little bit is not a bad idea.
To anonymous:
Actually this was something a friend said to me, as a friend of mine feels this way. This blog was mostly my understanding of what she meant and seeing the reasoning behind it. I still lean very far toward "your feelings are my business" - aka taking responsibility for everyone around you and their feelings.
People are definitely selfish beings, I agree, and we have to take that in account when we deal with them.
However, I think this actually accents selflessness rather than accents selfishness. When you do not expect others to drop everything for you on an emotional whim you are being very selfless - and it will be far easier to get along with you. It also makes you feel a lot better to stop expecting others to cater to you.
Suppose you have a friend that you find you no longer like - for whatever reason. Do you tell that person "I don't like you, I'm not going to be friends with you" or do you just stop calling them? Many people do the former, they feel that their feelings have to be heard by the other person - they want the person to feel guilty for this. The latter is far more mature - you don't have to bring your personal problems (not liking someone) to someone else (tell them you dont like them), when it won't change anything.
I'd rather see this as selectiveness rather than selfishness, but alas I still am not selective enough and care about more people than deserve it.
Thanks for the comment :)
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