The writing prompt for next Wednesday's sessions is:
"Self-sacrifice earns contempt. Self-development and self-investment earns respect."
That is a quote from American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn. I don't know anything about the man beyond these words shared with me by a friend, but I definitely like these words a lot.What do Jim Rohn's words mean to you? How do they inspire you? Please try to look beyond your alcoholic relationship to other connections in your life. Do you have examples of living this doctrine, or do you have goals to live it in the future?
I do like this quote a lot even if I understand it minimally.
I have to know who this man is, so I googled him and the following popped up on his wikipedia page:
"Emanuel James Rohn was born at Yakima, Washington, to Emmanuel and Clara Rohn. His parents owned and worked a farm in Caldwell, Idaho, where Rohn grew up as an only child. He was born to a poor family, became a millionaire at age 30, and went broke when he was 33. He later became a millionaire again.[1] Rohn left college after one year.[2]
Interesting.
Not really. I'm really just avoiding getting down the fact that I don't feel like expressing my feelings. I've sacrificed a lot of myself, not only in my alcoholic relationship, but also in friendships, with my family of origin, and strangers and roommates I am no longer in contact with. Maybe this is the reason I found myself as a co-dependent in an alcoholic relationship to begin with.
12/29/24 5:49pm
His wiki page also says he mentored the founder of Herbalife, which is kind of a reprehensible organization but I guess I can overlook that for the sake of this post.
Every time I sacrificed anything I felt great in the moment but shitty later on.
12/31/24 6:38pm
I think this quote resonates with me because the word sacrifice never feels good. When you give a piece of something away from yourself, you may feel good in the long run because outdated sources told you that sacrificing oneself was holy and good, but long term you feel like you cheated yourself.
It's hard to think past my alcoholic relationship because, as I'm quickly realizing writing this post, so many self-sacrificing situations have come up there. I have sacrificed so much of my hobbies, friends, fun, me time, even what I know about myself (because who really knows themselves and what they like) to my relationship in the past years its daunting and overwhelming to even think about.
I sacrifice a lot of myself at work, because my job and school district expect me to. I have given up my lunch hour, planning hour, and ended up working later in the day because -- students, other people need me. Other people's issues and problems are more important than my own. And intellectually, when I type this out I know it's not true, but in the moment, when the situation arises, and when someone comes up to me at work and presents an issue and I run through the mental list of everything I have to do that hour, I will drop everything because it makes me feel better about myself in the moment to help someone else than to help myself. Later I curse this decision when I haven't finished turning around that assignment that I need for the next day's class and am doing that at 9pm rather than sleeping, but in the moment all hell breaks loose in my mind and I DON'T MATTER.
Because I don't have kids of my own, a lot of my thoughts have turned inward toward my own childhood. And in thinking about this thought, and keeping to the topic of self-sacrifice, I do remember a lot of my childhood friendships being built on the fact that my "friends" expected me to share material things with them and I would without expecting something in return. It made me feel good to feel needed. Particularly around the ages of 12-14. At summer camp we had a hobby of collecting string and beads for bracelets. I and another girl were the go-tos at camp for supplies, but we had spent our own allowances on those supplies and gave them out freely when other girls asked, thinking it was being generous and kind. I remember being praised by adult leaders and even parents for doing this. But when my own supplies dwindled, and I found myself wanting to use them to make something of my own and I was missing a color, I was very upset with myself and probably just wrote it off.
I can't think of a time other than now, that I am really investing in myself.
They tell you when you are becoming a teacher that you don't do it for the income. That you should expect long days and longer nights. I've invested in this career for a while now and have a lot of the mental preparation done. But There never is enough. It's never enough. There is always something someone wants more. The school district will always be built on the assumption that some teacher somewhere, because we are majority women or because we have "hearts of gold" that someone will give unpaid labor to the resource pool and because one person does, everyone else should too.
And that is what breeds contempt. And resentment. I am so contemptuous at my job. I'm resentful that I've put in 40+ years of life and 15+ years into a career that I have no real anything to show for it.
It's time to stop that shit.
It's time to start investing in and respecting myself.
Only one problem. I have no idea how to do that.
