The Price of Being Good

“She is completely selfless.”

We mean it as a compliment.

A very good one.

She gives without asking anything in return. She puts other people first.

She notices what they need and responds. She doesn’t make everything about herself.

Self-less.

Less self.

It is an interesting word when you look at it closely. Somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided that having less of ourselves could be a virtue.

And sometimes it is.

We care for someone who is ill. We change plans, lose sleep, give time we wanted for ourselves.

Love asks things of us, and we recognize something admirable in answering.

But a word that describes what we do can gradually become a description of who we are.

She’s so selfless.

If we hear it often enough, we can begin to live inside the word.

If I am the selfless one, what happens when I’m tired? When I want my own way? When I don’t want to listen, accommodate, or make things easier for everyone else?

Am I still a good person?

Or am I selfish?

Perhaps this is where the word begins to tighten.

I no longer simply want to be generous. I need not to be selfish. Saying no, protecting my time, or allowing someone else to be disappointed begins to feel like evidence against me.

Other people can grow accustomed to my role, too. If I am usually the one who gives in, helps, or goes without, that can quietly become part of the arrangement between us.

Until I change it.

Then what feels like healthy self-regard to me may look like selfishness to someone who was more comfortable with the way things were.

But I can care deeply about you and care about myself.

I can give generously and sometimes choose not to give.

I can love you and disappoint you.

Perhaps what matters is not being selfless, but whether I still have a choice, to give because I want to give, and sometimes to say no without becoming a different kind of person in my own mind.

Which brings me back to the word.

Maybe the question isn’t whether selflessness is good or bad.

What I wonder is whether I am giving because I have chosen to give, or because somewhere along the way I learned that having less of myself was the price of being good.