After contemplating these questions, I found several reasons that choosing to do what is right for you regardless of other's think or feel is ultimately the most loving decision. Compromise and care to each person are great options, but can only go so far if it is causing one or each person to emotionally, mentally, physically, or spiritually sacrifice their own needs and desires.
A lot of us find it hard to make choices for ourselves if we think someone will be hurt, offended, disagree, or even hate us for it. On top of this social pressure, we also live in societies (which will differ based on where you grew up) that promote the idea that loving yourself is in fact selfish, wrong, or narcissistic, and that those who give or sacrifice are angels. We often shame selfishness, but glorify martyrdom. These kind of beliefs keep us in relationships and situations that we feel like we have to give up needs or desires to make the other person happy or the situation favorable. We begin people pleasing or "keeping the peace" at the cost of taking a step that might hurt but advance our lives immensely.
But what if the expansion of our consciousness as a human being is meant to make other's uncomfortable? Sometimes expansion for both people in a relationship means there will be an initial breakdown, or hard times, before change comes.
What do we find when someone tries to change their life for the better, via the means of "breaking up with someone" or making a choice that may hurt another? They are confronted with guilt, shame, or even fear that they are being selfish/stubborn/stupid. They are having to choose better for themselves despite the others person's thoughts or feelings because the relationship is not benefiting themselves or anyone else.
Here are some reasons why you need to let go of the other person's perspective in order to make the decision that will not only benefit you, but quite contrarily, the other as well! Even if it hurts, sometimes the pathway to change is shaking everything up so that not changing is no longer an option.
1. Your intentions for basing your decisions on other people's emotions or opinions may not be as pure as you think.
Our definition of love becomes distorted and misunderstood as it bends to what each society believes in this world. We often forget what ultimate, unconditional love really feels like (some sooner than others) and create our own version of what feels like love based on how we grew up and what we were taught. These versions of love are by no means worthless, but they are often conditional. Because of this forgetting, many things we call love are not. Conditional love says "I love you" meaning "I will continue to give love regardless of circumstances." For example, if a child breaks a vase that is a memento from your grandmother, it's natural that you will feel sad, angry, disappointed, etc. You may say to the child, "It's ok, I love you no matter what." But in that moment, it is not love that you are feeling. It is still conditional, because if it were unconditional you would be feeling love no matter what happened. But unconditional love does not just mean you will take loving action regardless of the circumstances, but within those circumstances. What we really mean is, "I want to love you unconditionally." This isn't to poke and prod you for not being unconditionally loving, as humans no one is in this state 100% of the time, and it's something we are all learning. I simply wanted to make the distinction.
Do you see how easy it is to take "I will continue to give love regardless of circumstances." can be taken to the level of self-sacrifice and the giving up of your own needs and desires? This isn't love because love doesn't require sacrifice. It is true that when you love enough, it is not a sacrifice. However, too often we use this truth to abuse ourselves and hide our true intentions, thoughts, and feelings...
If you are strong enough to admit that you suffer from a feeling of the lack of love in your life, continually giving or even self-sacrifice may simply a mechanism you may be using to be perceived as good, worthy, or useful. You may feel like you're doing the "right" thing, but love is not about right and wrong. If you realize you are one of these people, and this is your reason for continually making decisions based on other's perspectives, you may resort to shame or self-hating as your actions were from a self-motivated reason. At this point, friend, you need to take a good long look at your self-worth and use this as a lesson for offering yourself compassion and understanding so you can move forward into what your heart is telling you. In the end, you truly cannot give what you don't have.
2. You aren't making another truly happy, if it is causing you pain.
You are perhaps giving in outward action, but imagine that other people knew your other intentions for giving than to "just see them happy"... Do you think that it would make them feel good to know that what you're doing to make them happy is causing you pain? No one feels good knowing that their pleasure/happiness caused another pain. And if they do feel this way, they are being selfish because they've learned this world is about every person for themself. They don't understand the emotional or mental consequences it has on another.
3. You can't please everyone.
No matter what you say or do, there will always be someone that doesn't like what you say, do, or believe. If you are trying to be that fair-weather friend, realize that you are simply switching your actions to be liked. You are a little like someone who's trying to adopt two different personalities to fit into two entirely different groups of people. Just being yourself and doing what's right for you will in the long run make you feel happier, and you might as well because it is quite literally impossible to make everyone happy.
3. And... No matter how much you give/do for another person, you cannot truly change another person's perspective, life, or actions.
Change of mind has to be open and welcomed by the person that needs it. No matter what you give up for them, no matter what you do for them, no matter what you change in your own life for them, their perspective will never change because of you. You cannot control what other people do or don't think of you, because you cannot think for them. Sometimes we like to use our needs and desires like bargaining chips for the hope that someone will be able to make a change in their life. It makes you hope that the two of you can live happily ever after, but this does not work.
4. Your fear of judgment (as selfish, stubborn, etc.) is just as abstract as the mentality of those who judge.
That probably sounds confusing, so let me explain. You can control your actions, but everyone has different opinions on what is right action or wrong action. This is a collaboration of beliefs they are taught in the community/society they were raised and their own personal relationship with their triggers, sorrows, fears, and disappointments. These are abstract and vary greatly from person to person, family to family, and so on. Keep in mind that you are only dealing with different perspectives, and the one you fear is no more valid or real than one that will benefit you. If you've had enough experiences in life that support that particular fearful or detrimental perspective, it only feels more real or valid. Instead of basing what you do on other's abstract concepts of right and wrong, come from your heart. What does your own heart tell you about the beneficial or loving decision?
Coming from your heart also helps you realize that how they treat you emotionally is also how they treat a part of themselves emotionally. We cannot treat someone a certain way unless there are parts of ourselves we have treated that way. We only reject in others what we cannot love and accept within ourselves. The resulting compassion from this understanding dissolves our fears, sadness, and anger, and love can triumph over our personal reactions.
Not everyone in the world is going to like you and that's ok, which brings me to the fourth reason...
4. Your fear of judgment (as selfish, stubborn, etc.) is just as abstract as the mentality of those who judge.
That probably sounds confusing, so let me explain. You can control your actions, but everyone has different opinions on what is right action or wrong action. This is a collaboration of beliefs they are taught in the community/society they were raised and their own personal relationship with their triggers, sorrows, fears, and disappointments. These are abstract and vary greatly from person to person, family to family, and so on. Keep in mind that you are only dealing with different perspectives, and the one you fear is no more valid or real than one that will benefit you. If you've had enough experiences in life that support that particular fearful or detrimental perspective, it only feels more real or valid. Instead of basing what you do on other's abstract concepts of right and wrong, come from your heart. What does your own heart tell you about the beneficial or loving decision?
Coming from your heart also helps you realize that how they treat you emotionally is also how they treat a part of themselves emotionally. We cannot treat someone a certain way unless there are parts of ourselves we have treated that way. We only reject in others what we cannot love and accept within ourselves. The resulting compassion from this understanding dissolves our fears, sadness, and anger, and love can triumph over our personal reactions.
Not everyone in the world is going to like you and that's ok, which brings me to the fourth reason...
5. Discomfort is the catalyst for expansion into awareness.
When you come to a crossroads where you are having to decide between you and another person, sometimes the decisions we make are meant to contain discomfort. To illustrate this concept, I want to share a speech with you from Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski:
"There's something I want to tell you about stress, and how we have to look at stress. Ok? And I think it's an important thing because many people have told me from my lectures that it's the one thing they remember. Ok? I was sitting in a dentist office, and looked at an article that said, How do lobsters grow? I thought, 'Well, I don't care how lobsters grow.' But, I was interested in it, and it points out that the lobster is a soft, mushy animal that lives inside of a rigid shell. That rigid shell does not expand. Well, how can the lobster grow? Well, as the lobster grows, that shell becomes very confining, and the lobster feels itself under pressure, and finds itself uncomfortable. It goes under a rock formation to protect itself from predatory fish, casts off the shell, and produces a new one. Well eventually, that shell becomes very uncomfortable as it grows right? Back under the rocks... And the lobster repeats this numerous times. The stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow, is that it feels uncomfortable. Now, if lobsters had doctors, they would never grow. Because as soon as the lobster feels uncomfortable, it goes to the doctor, gets a valium, gets a percocet, and it feels fine so it never casts off it's shell. So the thing that we have to realize is that times of stress are also times that are signals for growth and if we use adversity properly, we can grow through adversity."
It is discomfort and negativity from which we are pressured to grow. On one hand, doing what feels better is absolutely self-loving and this will in turn help the world. On the other, sometimes an action under which we feel pressure is absolutely our gateway to make changes for the better, because where we are currently is no longer serving us or others. Sometimes, the forward-thinking choice is the most difficult one.
If you're having a hard time making a decision that may cause momentary hurt to yourself or another person, but it is the only way to change your life and how it's making you feel, consider for a moment that the upset, discomfort, or pain of the situation will ultimately call all involved to expand their self-awareness and learn. This isn't the free ticket to do or say whatever you want without caring about other people's feelings, or to be a total jerk. It's best to reduce suffering whenever possible, but also important to have the wisdom that you cannot walk this planet without causing some amount of suffering. If you make decisions that constantly undermine your own well-being, you rob others of the opportunity to grow. This brings me to...
6. You cannot promote peace and love in the world, whilst keeping yourself in pain.
Buddha once said, "Your compassion is incomplete if it does not include yourself." Michael Jackson reminded us of his Man in The Mirror Philosophy, "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change." Or you may've heard, "You can't give what you don't have." You are literally acting against your own values if you want a world filled with peace and loving kindness, but exclude yourself from it. For those of us with self-worth issues, it's easy for us to see ourselves as less than human. But in the end, when we come back down to Earth we are all human. You cannot be truly a part of your own movement for love if you cannot or do not give it to yourself. You will certainly continue to cause suffering if you cannot walk away from it for your own sake. Sometimes we cannot give ourselves love because we have not yet faced our own self-pity.
7. Remaining in self-pity will inhibit change where it's due, and you will only continue to make decisions on the account of another.
After realizing that our misery doesn't help anyone, another guise or mechanism our ego likes to use is self-pity. Before you get angry, I'm not here to tell you that you don't have a right to feel the way you feel. People who look down on self-pity with despise and hatred will never help those who are experiencing it, and moreover they probably look down on it because there is an aspect of them that also need validation and understanding. They were never able to get it and so they tell others to "suck it up" like they had to. Self-pity is all about validation and understanding. Self-pity is an emotion just like anger, sadness, or fear and it deserves to have it's own place for safe expression to be worked with and moved through.
However, we don't often get the validation we need because of self-pity's bad rap. This perspective arises from circumstances that involve self-pity. For instance, some of us are addicted to other's validation to the extent that we are powerless to other's opinions, and cannot think for ourselves. Others may offer us validation because we are seen as the "victim" and therefore the good guy. Thus, we hand over our power for self-validation completely and let others determine whether it's "valid" to feel the way we do. However, we find that people get tired of constantly validating and they may leave us, at which point we feel abandoned. Then we may self-pity over the abandonment and the cycle starts over and over again.
If we can recognize self-pity as such, we can learn to offer it our understanding and compassion, whilst taking back control of our life and making decisions for ourself. We can simply own our emotions in response to something, rather than having to play the "good guy". When we are able to be in complete understanding of ourselves and validate ourselves as we move through our experiences, we are able to be more confident in our decisions rather than resorting to another's validation to take an action that will feel better.
8. Only you have lived your life, and of all people, you know yourself best.
Some people seem to have the idea that they know what is best for you. They should come and live your life, right? No. You have to remember that you have lived with yourself from the second you were born, and continue to 24 hours, 7 days a week. You know better than anyone else what will make you happy, and what truly speaks to your soul. In your life you will be surrounded by people who may not understand you, think your weird, or dislike you for what seems like no reason. These people are coming from the projection of their own beliefs about the world. The problem is not you, the problem is how they are choosing to perceive you. When you stop worrying about what other people think, you are free to reap the benefits from actions that feel good directly rather than stressing other's opinions over it. For this reason...
9. When you make decisions right for you, your personal judgments toward others will lessen.
We have to admit it, we have judgments. Every person alive has judgments. When we experience happiness as a direct result of a decision we have made, we realize the importance of each person paying attention to their internal guidance. Having this realization brings new perspective on other's and what they do to bring themselves happiness, thus lifting some previous judgments on their own actions toward happiness.
As you make the decisions that feel right for you and come from your heart, you can be the living proof that the heart is stronger than anything else. You can be the living proof that love is stronger than fear. You can show the world that not only loving others, but especially yourself, can change the way we interact with the world and create greater peace and kindness. It is natural that what what we change within ourselves will mirror onto those around us.
We have to admit it, we have judgments. Every person alive has judgments. When we experience happiness as a direct result of a decision we have made, we realize the importance of each person paying attention to their internal guidance. Having this realization brings new perspective on other's and what they do to bring themselves happiness, thus lifting some previous judgments on their own actions toward happiness.
10. You can't escape yourself. Only YOU can change YOU.
If you are living a less-than-satisfactory life and if you feel like you could be happier, you need to remember you can't escape yourself. Remember all the decisions you've made based on other people's opinions, emotions, or perspective, and suffered? If you continue to make the same decisions, because you can't escape yourself, you will have to continue to endure that pain and suffering. Ask yourself, am I going to willingly choose to live with this pain? Or, will I make a change?
11. You can be the proof that loving yourself was the best decision you ever made. As you make the decisions that feel right for you and come from your heart, you can be the living proof that the heart is stronger than anything else. You can be the living proof that love is stronger than fear. You can show the world that not only loving others, but especially yourself, can change the way we interact with the world and create greater peace and kindness. It is natural that what what we change within ourselves will mirror onto those around us.
The deeper part of us is compassion, acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness. So when we find these for ourself, we are also teaching ourselves how to give it to others.
