wandering sails

on being selfish...

i have been thinking as of late that i am a rather selfish person. i remember a teacher in high school believing that every human action was a selfish act. obviously, anything we do for ourselves could be thought to be selfish. it was on the doing things for others being selfish that he received the most arguments. he questioned why we did things for others. was it not essentially because it made us feel good? which would turn it into a selfish act. but i really think i am selfish... i interrupt quite a bit, find it easy to tell my stories and experiences when conversing with others, and i'm a complainer. granted the latter is something i have been trying to work on for quite a while and honestly feel like i have made considerable progress, but i still do it. i remember, at the end of a relationship, my friend, sandi telling me that i needed to be more selfish. i needed to look out for myself, not let myself get walked all over. she used to chide me about letting so many things go... mayonnaise on a sandwich when i had asked for none, french fries when i had asked for fruit, and so on... i had just never seen the point in making someone else feel bad for a mistake when it wasn't the end of the world to live with the french fries, since i like them. but i have been feeling very convicted lately about my conversational skills... they could be better. a lot better. others have words that are just as important or more important than my own, but sometimes, i just never get to hear them, because all of my stories want to be told and i've already heard all of them. maybe i should start talking to my plants. telling random people on the street. or writing them here. because who reads this? only three people that i know of. and you can all choose to not read, right? i don't know. just thought i'd put it out there that i am selfish.

posted by julie @ 4:21 PM