I have spent most of my life saving other people.

Not in the way a doctor saves lives, but in a much more selfish and distracted way. I attempt to save people from their own demons so often that it has created an enormous monster in my own life.

I came to this realization when I met my latest project. I was intrigued by his “dark past” and loner attitude. But when a friend asked what I found interesting about him, I caught myself questioning what exactly it was that I actually enjoyed about him.

{Cue the light bulb above my head.}

I looked at him as another person to save me from myself.

I have found that instead of focusing on myself and my direction in life, I assumed it was easier to rescue other people. And most of the time, they don’t even know that I am saving them.

Most of them don’t need or want to be saved.

It’s a way of a distraction for me. I’ve spent so long fixing unbroken people, that I have little time for myself.

I tend to dive, heart first and head last, into the lives of others. Somewhere between wanting to save myself from my own broken heart, and being intrigued about the lives of others, I find that I sacrifice my own well being for a fleeting moment of their presumed happiness.

And just as a bird flies unknowingly into a window, I am the one that sees the reflection in the glass. I become the bird in this analogy, and the window becomes the lives of others. There always comes a point where reality becomes a reflection, and I am the one that crashes head first into the window.

Where I felt that I was helping others, and it has only been a select few, I am actually just hurting myself. I became enamored in these unnamed few. I wanted to give them the best I thought I could, and who is to say that they are unhappy to begin with? Who am I to project my opinion and affection onto another person who is not inviting me to do so?

I place my reflection of myself onto their lives, and how I assume it should be. This is a direct reflection of my own life, and my ambitions. I learned a long time ago that I could focus on others instead of myself, and have lost myself in the years spent living for someone else. There always comes a time in the other person’s life where they no longer need me. Or perhaps they find someone else they need more, or just grow tired of my savior demeanor.

One simply does not just stop saving—or sacrificing for—other people. I believe understanding why I behave in such a way, is as good as any to figure out how to save myself.

As Dr. Maraboli says in this quote, I must learn to love people as they are. Instead of assuming they need a “hand out,” maybe they just need a hand to help them up. If I’m busy saving others, they have less time to learn to save themselves. And who is going to save me?

So this is where I am starting : I choose to be my own hero for once.

I am my newest project.

I’m going to save myself from crashing into yet another reflection in the window.

 

 

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Editor: Travis May

Image: kcochran06 at Flickr