The other day, I was talking to a friend of mine who was drained. It seemed that all of the people in her life were requiring more energy than what she had to give. It was sucking her energy dry.
She told me that she needed to make a change. She needed to limit her time with the energy-suckers and spend more time with energy-givers.
But she felt guilty.
Guilty that she was letting her friends down. Guilty for not 'being there'.
It occured to me that there are a lot of people that, quite frankly, don't want the help. They just need for other to feel their pain.
They don't want to change. They don't want to solve their delimma. They just need other people's energy.
My theme for 2011 is to have "incredible experiences with incredible people". This allows me to make an easy choice.
Is the person I'm speaking with an incredible person?
Do they take, and keep taking, or do they give back? Are they committed to growing as a person and contributing to the betterment of society? Are they self-serving, or do they understand the power of being of service to others?
All of us have the capacity to be incredible, but not everyone decides to be.
I decided that I don't have the energy to give it to people who don't give back (this is different than people who "cannot" give back). And this gives me a clear answer with no guilt. Personally, I want to spend my time with people who want to press forward instead of living in the past. I want to spend my time with incredible people.
I LOVE this post! It so speaks to me right now. It’s something I needed to hear, and I didn’t even know it. It’s so easy to give of yourself until there’s nothing left for anyone, yourself included. I understand where your friend is coming from! I love your take on it though. The idea of that “They don’t want to change. They don’t want to solve their delimma. They just need other people’s energy.” is so true of some people.
I’m going to remember this post the next time I’m allowing people to drain all my energy away.
When we spend time with incredible people where the give and take is mutual, everyone benefits and life is so much better!
Very nicely done, Steve. Hope you don’t mind if I share a link on my FB page. 🙂