She remembered everyone’s birthday. She picked up the check when she could. She sent money to her family without being asked. She bought gifts that showed she had been paying attention.
Her own apartment had furniture she’d been meaning to replace for six years. She wore the same coat through three winters because she couldn’t quite justify a new one. She hadn’t taken a vacation in four years.
A friend pointed it out one afternoon, gently. She went home and couldn’t argue with any of it.
For some people, generosity toward others functions as a substitute for self-care. The spending on others feels justified in a way that spending on yourself doesn’t. Others’ needs are legible. Your own feel negotiable. The coat is fine for one more winter. The trip can wait.
This is not selflessness. It is a specific discomfort with your own needs that gets disguised as a virtue.
I recognize this. The ease of giving to others and the friction of giving to yourself. The way your own wants feel like they need more justification than someone else’s needs.
She deserves a new coat. She knows that. She also knows it isn’t really about the coat.
What does she believe about herself that makes her own needs feel less real than everyone else’s?
You cannot sustainably give what you are not also giving yourself. The generosity runs thin eventually. Or worse, it keeps going and what runs thin is you.
She sent money to her family last week. She still has the old coat. She is thinking about the trip.
She’s not sure she’ll go.
Some things worth sitting with:
- Are you generous with others in ways you’re not generous with yourself?
- What’s the last thing you spent on yourself without it feeling complicated?
- What would change if you treated your own needs as legitimate as everyone else’s?
Something similar runs through She Built the Business. It Took Fifteen Years. It Still Wasn’t Enough., if you want to keep sitting with it.
Inspired by a real story shared anonymously online.