How can we help each other while helping ourselves?

I recently visited a friend in San Francisco, a graphic designer by the name of Fisher.

One of the things we talked about was how to be selfish. I think it is often seen as politically incorrect to be selfish, but I ended up creating what seemed like a great analogy for how we can be both selfish and selfless.

Whenever I feel like someone is taking too much from me, I stop and picture water containers. I must choose to give water from my container in order for it to flow into theirs. They do nottake the water, I am letting them have it. If the burden of this loss of water is too much for whatever my personal boundary is, then it is up to me to stop pouring water out, and to spend time refilling my own container. The refilling is when I am spending time feeding my own mind and fulfilling my own goals.

Now, whenever I consider giving to someone, whether it is my time, money, or attention, I check the water level in my own container first and reflect on the state of my boundaries. If I have guarded my supply well, then there may be plenty of water for me to give; And if I have allowed myself to become dehydrated, then when I try to give I will only be met with pain and frustration as I try to perform a aquatic overdraft!

I hope you can see the analogy and take a positive lesson from it, as here we have the very relevant upvoting power levels and we can actually help others more by monitoring our own power levels. You see, when we may appear to be withholding, it could simply be to wait for a time when our sharing means more to the other person.

So go out there and have good personal boundaries, and remember the old saying: "sharing after you've been selfish first is caring!" So fill 'er up and then pour out those talents, and maybe we'll switch up the water analogy for something a little more fun ^_

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