Selfishness

I’m usually only concerned about three people in my life: Me, myself, and I. That’s the definition of selfishness, and the root question selfish people are always asking is something like: “What are you going to do that is going to make my life better, easier?”

Self-lessness (the opposite of selfishness) is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. The irony of it all is the more I try to think of myself less, the more I’m actually thinking about myself. It’s pretty much an impossible reality to escape. We’re all more concerned with ourselves than we are of others.

Those that say they’re more concerned about others than themselves usually aren’t aware of how they’re using others to feel better about themselves. No one is altruistic, and no one is fully evil either (though some are close).

We can be in recovery for our selfishness (a very similar process to recovery for addictions), or we can be in some form of denial for how much our selfishness affects those around us.

 

Burdens

I’ve been thinking about how many people feel like their marriage is a burden. I agree, marriage is a burden. But I think it’s a burden in a different kind of way. The word “burden” in the Hebrew language means “assignment from God.” Marriage is a burden to our selfishness. It’s an assignment to deal with our selfish nature.

To do marriage well requires a life of surrender and sacrifice, both of which don’t coexist well with selfishness. Marriage is not intended to make us whole. Yes, it fills some of our gaps, but not all of them. Marriage exposes what we do when all of our gaps aren’t filled like we want them to be.

What is it that we humans do when we get exposed? Hide, blame, run, cover up, and any number of other tactics to get back in control. We’re like the wizard of oz, “pay no attention to the frail, weak, aging man behind the curtain, only look at the big image that’s being projected on the screen.”

What burdens do you need to take responsibility for in your marriage?