Image is mine.
The question by @priyanarc which goes, how do you create balance between giving to others and prioritizing your own needs? Made me remember one of the ten commandment from the bible which is, love your neighbor as yourself.
My understanding of this quote is that you have to first love yourself, before you can love anyone else. There's another saying too, which states that you cannot pour from an empty cup.
Also, there's the fact that you cannot give what you do not have, so why be a giver at your expense?
We know that givers never lack, but if you give from a place of debt? Like we say in Nigeria, "your eye go clear"(you will learn a lesson and probably the hard way too).
Personally, I love to give from a place of abundance. I do not like giving out of inconvenience and this has made some people that I see as friends to seldom tag me stingy or selfish. But am I really stingy? Am I selfish?
No, I am not. The thing is, I just like managing my resources wisely because I hate to be dependent and most times, after expenses, I might not even have anything left for savings talk more of Charity. But with the way that I manage and carry myself, people would often want to lay their burden on me, because they think I have in abundance or probably have no financial constraints.
Talking about prioritizing ones need, back then when I just got done with Uni and job hunting, a friend of mine also fresh out of the Uni was first to get a job.
So one day, we were chatting when she asked me how far I have gone with my hunt and I told her no show yet.
Next thing she went, how can you have a job when you have not first given to God. I got confused, which made me ask her, "am I owing God?" She laughed and said, if she would advise me, I should clear my bank account and give all the money to beggars and amputees.
After that, she went further to instruct me to cry to God in prayers for a job, citing that, it was what she did that got her employed. She concluded with the phrase, givers never lack.
I thought about all she had said. I considered it and contemplated it but then, I couldn't bring out the sense in all what she had said.
Here I was, unemployed and broke because being an adult means that no one gives you handouts.
The moment you leave Uni, it is assumed that you are now an independent adult, job or no job.
To me, Clearing my account at the time to give to the needy, would simply mean that I'll end up being the needy and once I arrived at that conclusion, I told myself that I do not have to displease myself to please others.
I also remembered how a young man with a thriving restaurant went bankrupt. He started living from hand to mouth when he donated all he had, including his business proceeds to his church.
The most painful thing in the young man's story was that, in his most trying times, the church he had given his all, failed to help him. It was an experience I would rather learn from to avoid repeating the same mistake.