Friday, May 21, 2010

Number 15

Do something 100% selfless...oh gosh

This task on the list was one of the few that after adding I thought to myself "why do you hate yourself?" In theory, it is great. I would love to be selfless all the time or atleast more than once a summer, but then it started dawning on me what exactly that entailed. Doing something 100% selfless is doing something to help someone without any expectation of return or any personal reasons. Well, seeing as though I was attempting to do this to mark it off my list, I knew this already messed me up because I was doing it to accomplish something for myself. I was screwed!

On top of this, I struggled with the fact that even if by some remote chance I felt as though I accomplished this task, how would I write about it? If I blogged exactly what I did, it would be bragging almost and totally go against the entire point. I struggled with this one for a really long time. I talked to my family and continued asking for advice. It was at this time my sister reminded me of a very special episode of my favorite show. FRIENDS.

I am not sure how many avid fans of FRIENDS read my blog but if by chance you are one, perhaps you remember this episode. I cannot specifically remember the entire plot, but it involves Phoebe attempting to do a selfless act. Joey then argues with her that there is no possible way that it can be done. Throughout the show Phoebe trys to do selfless acts but continues receiving something in return. She eventually has this discussion with her peeps.


THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FELT!

After battling with what I was going to do, I finally just gave up and decided that maybe something would happen and it would all work out.

Here is where it gets kind of interesting...

I am going to give a short summary of what happened and why I am crossing this off the list. I am not going to give any specifics and am honestly going to try to keep it as vague as possible. In all honesty, I feel stupid writing about it because it is personal and I don't feel like I need to "brag" about it, however, I knew it wouldn't be fair to just cross it off without any explanation. So here it goes...

This week has been a crazy week. I feel like I have grown up a lot especially within one certain circumstance.

Earlier this week one of my friends had a very personal situation occur. It was a very intense and I was put in a position I never had been in before. This person needed me to do some favors for them and encourage and support them during a difficult time. I love this person and am very close to them so of course I agreed without any hesitation. I was thinking nothing of this list at all. Throughout the week, the issue has continued to be dealt with and I've been there for for the person as best I could.

After the situation that one day, I was filling my brother in on everything and he stops while I am telling him the story and says, "Dude, you just did something 100% selfless. Cross it off!"

It was in that moment that my jaw just kind of dropped. At first, I just wrote it off but the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was probably right (or at least the closest I would get).

I really hope this doesn't make me sound bad or boastful because that was not the intention at all. I would never even have thought about using said scenario if an outside person hadn't stopped and told me that this was my number 15.

I am sorry there are no pictures or anything extravagant. Obviously, I am protecting someone's identity and it's not like I was preparing for any of this.

I know that this task put a lot of things into perspective for me. Sometimes it is so easy to just be focused on everything in your own life that it is hard to step back and look around at the people around you. I feel naive that it took a stupid task to make me realize how often I can act selfish. I'm hoping that through this, I can learn to put myself second and really focus on others more.

I am marking number 15 off!

3 comments:

  1. This is by far my favorite one! You are a wonderful person, and it is very evident that you care for others. Keep up the good work!

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  2. this is beautiful..! i love it, and i love u even more!

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  3. Great Job on number 15. I thought u handled that very well. Proud of ya.
    Dad

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