Sometimes, I can’t help but think about the impossible positions and pressures that we place on ourselves. We simply look at ourselves and decide that we want to be the ones to save everybody. We want to be the Alpha and Omega, the one who comes through for everyone close to us. And as a result, we go out of our way to play this role, not minding the effect it has on us.
You’ll be shocked to learn that there are people who are willing to put their lives on hold just to save everyone else. While it might be noble and all, it only affects you in the long run. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it's that many times, some sacrifices are not important at all. The very people that you bend over backwards to save would have turned out perfectly even though they didn’t have you making such grand gestures for them. Because that’s human nature, they’ll always adapt.
Of course, there are sacrifices that are absolutely understandable. Like the ones parents do for kids, or partners do for each other. I’ll always know why such sacrifices are being made and why a person will feel the need to be the savior to their partner or child. But if it’s someone who wears it like a cloak, choosing to die for the sins of those around them, they will die, and everyone will move on without a second thought.
Over this past week, I almost lost a dear friend. This girl is the first daughter of her family, and she lost her mother late last year. However, her relationship with her father is tumultuous. For some reason, the man seems to hate her, and that’s why she moved out of the house and stays on her own, away from his toxic influence. Her siblings are all in their early twenties, and they all have hard skills, and they’re also in universities.
And for some reason, they were all relying heavily on my friend to pay all their bills. When they ask their Dad, and he refuses, they troop to her, and she provides. Many times, I suspect the Dad refuses knowing that they’ll go to her and she’ll give. She was doing all this while it was seriously affecting her own life. She would pay her siblings fees while she was still owing hers. She cleared the rent and gave them money for food.
Because of this, trying to mix all this with work and school, was always taking a toll on her. She was working extra, and yet she was still in debt. She was making so much money, but it was all going into paying bills. One time, I advised her to think more about herself. Her brothers all had skills, why were they refusing to utilize them?
This December, she began to work extra hard to make enough money to pay fees, get clothes, and do December Oblee for all of them. And finally, her body decided that enough was enough. She fainted during class one day. And she spent more than a week at the hospital. Imagine being so stressed and malnourished that your body just shuts down! This is the heartbreaking part; none of her siblings stayed with her to take care of her. Not even one. They all came and left. And when the time came to pay the hospital bills, none of them had shishi to assist.
Yet, the school fees and Oblee money that my friend had been killing herself to raise, they managed to source them somehow. Every single kobo that they had been depending on her for, they had managed to get it. So, it meant that even without her being there, their lives continued regardless. It really hurt when she told me. It’s sad to put your neck on the line for everyone else, but no one will be willing to do the same for you.
It shows that her siblings didn’t need her to do so much, they had always been capable of it. They just used her because it was easier. And that’s how it is everywhere else. No one needs you to be a hero or to be Superman. You don’t have to place yourself under unnecessary pressure just to be the savior of the world. Because in the end, the only hero everyone needs is themselves. We all have what it takes to pull ourselves out of whatever mess we’re in. And if we need it badly enough, we’ll definitely find our way out.
As we get into the new year, we should get rid of this savior mentality. It’ll only get us killed.
