For so much of my life I’ve been concerned with being a good friend. I’ve never wanted someone to look back at me and say that I wasn’t one. One thing I pride myself on is the level of empathy I have for other people. I like being there for people, I like giving advice, and I like when I’m the first one that people come to with problems. I have this fantasy of a Golden Girls or Sex and the City future where my friends and I live together and have zany adventures, significant others always coming second to that.
Once I came to college, somehow my desire to be a good friend became a burden on me. When you’re away from your family, your friends become your entire support system. It became harder for me to see the difference between putting your friends first and neglecting your own needs. When is it not selfish to put yourself first? What if something that makes you happy is making your friend miserable? What if putting your friends needs above your own is affecting your mental health? These are all questions I’m struggling to answer. Having a high level of empathy means I tend not to be able to enjoy my own happiness if someone else in my life is unhappy.
College is the time to discover yourself, and I have definitely discovered that I can’t always put myself behind others. Being a good friend, to me, is finding a happy medium between always sacrificing yourself and always being selfish. As much as I would love to be the kind of person that friends will think of and say; “She would drop everything and be there for me”, that’s not realistic. And before you put yourself on hold for someone else, think about if they would do that for you. I’ve spent a lot of my relationships so far putting in more effort than what was reciprocated, and that’s not a good feeling. If a friend isn’t adding anything positive to your life anymore, there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back if that’s what’s best for you. At the end of the day, your friends are there to make you happy, not to make you sad.
There is a balance to being a good friend to others and being a good friend to yourself. As much as everyone would like to say that they are selfless and altruistic all the time, we aren’t. At the end of the day, you have to be happy with yourself before you can even begin to help someone else. Before anything else, you have to live your life.