Believe me, I am not a selfish person. I love sharing my things. Unless I don't have it. In fact, if sharing were a skill, I would consider it one of my strongest. But sometimes, I have to satisfy myself without having a second thought about it. Whenever I remember those moments, I cannot help but laugh, because I love giving and making people around me comfortable. However, there have been times when I chose to put my own preferences first, though it's just a tiny dose of selfishness, not the harmful kind 😂.
There was a day when I went out with my mother. The sun was blazing, and my throat was dry from the heat. I craved a very cold, carbonated drink. It wasn’t just about thirst, and I had to look for how to feel refreshed at that moment. The problem was that my mother does not like carbonated drinks. She avoids them completely because it always upsets her stomach anytime she takes them. I thought about buying something we could both share, like juice or yogurt, but I knew it would not satisfy the kind of thirst I had that day. I had a double thought in my head: "Mary, buy yogurt so that you both can share it," then another voice was like, "Don't worry, just buy what you crave; nobody will die." Yes! Finally I bought the carbonated drink, but I felt a mix of satisfaction and guilt. She ended up buying water for herself.
Another moment like this happened with my sister, involving spicy noodles. I don't have enough money that day, the cash with me can only buy 1 packet of noodles, and it won't be enough for us. Normally, I would have bought enough for both of us, but I didn’t have the resources, and I was very hungry. Selfishly, I decided to cook the noodles with a generous amount of pepper, knowing my sister doesn’t like food that is spicy. As I finished cooking, she appeared like a food inspector. Just like she always does, she took one spoon, tasted it, and noticed the pepper immediately. “There’s pepper!” she said. And with my most innocent face, I said, “Ho! Really? I don’t know. Probably it’s a mistake," I said sheepishly. She dropped the spoon, and I continued with my meal. I accomplished my mission without guilt 😂.
Choosing ourselves something doesn't make us a bad person, just my thought. Sometimes that thing you're craving for, try to take it; selfishness is allowed once in a blue moon. Buying a carbonated drink to satisfy myself doesn't mean I don't care about her; I just want to feel a little pleasure then. And the funny thing is that she said, "I'm okay with the water," and in my sister's case, she's okay too because she's not hungry but wanted to reduce my ration. Nevertheless, balance is important, because if I buy what only I will like or cook what only I will eat every day, that one is no longer okay. Believe me, that's a full-time selfishness, and I'm not going to do that. 😅
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